


Men Need Their Gods, So I Need You

by hedonisticnightmares



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Greek Religion & Lore Fusion, Ancient Greece, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:48:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 55,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26556877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hedonisticnightmares/pseuds/hedonisticnightmares
Summary: Ancient Greece. Castiel is half a god, and wholly an outcast. Dogged by a prophecy, and the unnatural beauty bestowed upon him by his divine parentage, it seems he will forever be separated from normalcy and happiness. When Dean arrives at his home as a slave, Castiel is determined to make a friend of him. As the boys grow, so do their feelings. However, Castiel's destiny and Dean's social status are hurdles that stand between them and their happiness.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 24
Kudos: 75





	1. PHILLIA (Love Between Friends)

The divinity that coursed through Castiel’s veins had always been a quality feared as much as revered by everyone he came into contact with. He cared not for it, but it was part of him, so inescapable that it felt as though each breath he took was further proof of his divine parentage. His mother was the dark-haired beauty of a noble family, favored, they said, by the slender-hipped god Hermes, and eventually gifted with Castiel for her piety. Since he had been a boy, he’d heard whispers of _prophecy_ and _hero_ , and when he stood before his mother, he could always feel the weight of these expectations in the way her hands settled on his shoulders, delicate though they were. She had a quiet, serious way about her—one which he had inherited—and because of this, they seldom spoke to one another. She rarely spoke at all, except to whisper words of the prophecy she seemed to cling to, _"You will make a great king and be worshiped as a god.”_ Her large, dark eyes would bore into his, and Castiel would feel as though she had placed her very life on his shoulders. Even at such a young age, he could sense the immensity of her expectation, the urgency with which she believed it, and he wanted not to disappoint her. However, he knew not how to bring it to fruition, and so he listened and hoped that one day the answer would come to him. 

His care was left largely to his nurses and tutors, as after Castiel’s birth, the man his mother called her husband set about making much more use of her than he had before, and he walked perilously close to inciting the wrath of the gods with his hubris. Had Castiel’s father been Zeus or Ares, perhaps he would not have fared so well. No mortal seed could rival that of a god's, no matter how often it spilled. As such, Castiel had a handful of wholly mortal siblings, and despite the godhead within him, he would have bet that any of them were more likely to become a king or hero than he was. He had no desire to snuff out his mother’s hopes for him, and although he wanted to fulfill her expectations, he didn’t _feel_ as if he was meant to be a king. Though, he thought perhaps there was a chance it was simply because he was still only a boy, and that one day, when he awoke as a man, years along, he would feel the pull of kingship in his gut. Perhaps then he would know what to do to make it so. It was only this thought that allowed him to carry on with his studies and to sleep nights without being crushed by the weight of his mother’s expectations. 

Hermes was not an especially attentive father, as was the way with most of the gods. By the time he was a youth, Castiel could count on one of his hands the number of times that he had met him. And he would have needed both hands and most of his toes to enumerate the reasons he did not like him at all. As a start, he’d curse his divine blood, and the cruel twist that it had given him—bright blue eyes that unnerved anyone who wasn’t already too in awe of him to stay away. As if being half a god wasn’t punishment enough. As if the loneliness that dogged him because of it wasn’t. No matter his mother’s prophecies or assurances, he did not think of himself in the way the heroes and demigods who had come before him were thought of, and he did not think, as his mother did, that he would become anything more significant than a proficient soldier. He thought he could master the skill it would take, but not the desire, though he tried to hold to the hope that it would one day sprout within him, fully formed, like the goddess Aphrodite from the sea. He understood, though, that this was unlikely. By all other accounts, and if not for his eyes, he felt he passed for a fairly standard child. He had begun to shed his roundness, and had grown knobby in places that had once been dimpled by fat, and if he didn’t speak, then he didn’t come across as any more quick-witted than other boys his age. 

Perhaps, he would lead an army someday, and if he died in the midst of a great battle, then he’d save himself the trouble of finding a way to be immortalized. His death would be proof enough of his heroism. They’d erect a statue or paint him onto an amphora, or perhaps his mother would weave his story into a tapestry. He doubted whether it would be anything worth weaving, particularly if he never managed to become a king. He’d need to conquer a kingdom or marry a princess to do that, and he wasn’t particularly interested in doing either. As for godhood, well, it seemed that seldom worked out the way anyone planned, and as he had no interest in becoming a constellation or lesser nymph, he wasn’t certain that immortality was something that really appealed to him.

Hermes never spoke of the future or the prophecy, though it was said that he had the gift of foresight himself, and it was by a streak of inherent stubbornness that Castiel refused ever to ask. More often than not, Hermes spoke of himself when he visited, one adventure or another, or if not, then he liked to spin tales (whether they were true or not Castiel was not often certain), which seemed to amuse him more the less they amused Castiel. It was for this reason—his father’s seeming disinterest in his future—that Castiel felt that much more certain that somewhere along the line, the prophecy given to his mother was not meant for him. Certainly, he was the only one of his mother’s children with godhead, but he couldn’t help but believe any one of them might find glory before he ever did. 

And so it was. For the first several years of his life, Castiel knew little of kindness not steeped in the desire for gain—either from what he would become, or for the favor of his father—and he was schooled in music, strategy, and combat in equal measure. While he grew proficient in these skills (though it should be said that he had no talent for song and played only the lyre or syrinx when it was required of him), it could be noted that his father had been the swift and clever Hermes, and not the war hungry Ares or sweet voiced Apollo. His talents, much to the dismay of his instructors and tutors, lay primarily in sleights of hand. He liked making things disappear and reappear again in odd places, and he was particularly good at freeing himself when bound. Additionally, he had a fondness for animals that put him further at odds with other people. He found that if he listened intently enough, he could often hear the stories of certain creatures or discern their desires, though most anyone he bothered to speak to about it tended to brush it off as childhood fancy. 

He seemed to stumble upon his true skills entirely on his own, and as his tutors had no part in the development of such talents, he had more interest in honing them than he did his studies. He had a tactician’s mind, according to any of his instructors that were asked, but Castiel generally used it to plan for things that involved a bit of mischief, like stealing figs before dinner or playing tricks on his siblings, rather than siege plans. His youth excused it, but he could often overhear debates about whether he would outgrow such things sooner if everyone were stricter on him. It seemed they were split on whether or not Hermes might reign terror upon them if Castiel was unhappy and chose to complain. Castiel could have told them they need not fear; Hermes would never be inclined to do anything so predictable or even seek vengeance on his behalf. However, it served him to stay silent on the subject, as was the case for him most of the time, and so he let them think what they would.

Still, it was difficult for them to complain or find fault with him, as even when he was bored with his lessons, he nearly always performed to perfection. Even if he appeared awkward and ungainly, he was anything but. 

It wasn’t until after his eighth winter that anything of real note happened to him. Mostly, he kept out of the way, and practiced his tricks when he was bored, and though he had tried to make friends of his siblings, both older and younger, his step-father did his best to discourage harmony between them. They disliked him on principle, and if the opportunity arose to out-do him or point out the fact that he was abnormal in comparison to them, one of them usually took it. Eventually, Castiel gave up trying. He didn’t quite hold their treatment of him against them—he realized they had been taught to treat him as they did, an ink stain on an otherwise perfect monopoly of their mother—but that didn’t make it much easier to bear. Even when one of them managed to be kind to him, either out of some fraternal goodwill or entirely by accident, it seldom took very long for them to fling it back at him with barbs. Compliments were backhanded, and moments that might have been tender were later used to magnify his weaknesses.

His loneliness persisted throughout his childhood, and so he resigned himself to it. Instead, he made friends of stray or wild animals, or made up curious games for himself. He communicated with the animals almost better than he did people, and it was rare that anyone held any particular interest in the games he liked to invent. Children outside of his home were sometimes frightened of him, and if they weren’t, then either his siblings or their awe of him tended to keep them at a distance. He had no real companions, but he grew not to mind it. He had a particular fondness for birds, and sneaked sparrows or swifts with him to his room when he could manage it. It wasn’t unusual for one to light on his shoulder if he was out in the open, and if he spoke, it was usually to one of them. This habit only served to make other people more wary of him. 

It was such when his step-father returned from battle one afternoon. The house had gathered to greet him upon his return, and Castiel stood among them, a little sparrow, whose name was _Arete_ , on his shoulder. The region had been at war for some time, and when it finally ended, his mother’s husband brought in new slaves. All women, but for one. It wasn’t a common practice to take boys—they were usually killed rather than sold or taken, and when his mother’s husband was asked about his unusual mercy, he’d grunted and said the gods had willed it.

Had it not been for that boy in particular, Castiel was sure that the memory would have been lost to time. There was nothing unusual about slaves, and though it was rare, it wasn’t totally unheard of for younger boys to be spared and brought into a household. Sometimes, if they were old enough and wealthy enough, they were sold to brothels for a profit—added disgrace to their former kingdoms. This is what he might have expected for the boy had he not looked so young, and had it not been the will of the gods that spared him. His step-father may have been coarse and brutish, but he wasn’t bold enough to defy the gods outright. If the boy had been spared by them, then he must have been special in some way. Perhaps it was this notion that first threw the sparks that would light fires of kinship in Castiel’s breast. If all these things had not fallen into place this way, the boy might have simply been another child that his siblings absorbed and turned against him with whispers of his parentage and inherent oddity. 

He was fairer than Castiel was used to seeing, fairer, even, than most of the women he had come with, and the healthy bronze of his skin made Castiel feel certain he had descended from the gods as well. Despite this, and despite his obvious beauty, unlike Castiel, he seemed to fit with his people much more easily than Castiel had ever managed to fit in with his own family, let alone anyone else. Aside from his exceeding beauty, the only things that set him apart from them were his youth—Castiel estimated he had six summers at most, while most of the women and girls were probably somewhere between thirteen and twenty or so—and the obstinate expression on his face. He looked as though he would have brought the roof down on all of them, if only he’d had the strength. It made Castiel curious about him. 

When at last the new slaves were bade to bathe and change to prepare for their welcome feast, Castiel finally caught the boy’s eye. It was unnerving, because unlike every other person who had set eyes on him since his birth, there was little change in his expression when he looked at Castiel. It was like he had glanced upon a mildly interesting insect rather than a lonely boy with freakishly colored eyes and knobby knees. Castiel lightly touched Arete in an effort to comfort himself, and she cooed in return. He had never been looked at that way before—a look that neither denoted anxiety or disgust. After a moment, the boy’s expression shuttered again, a return to perfect obstinance as he was led from the room by the hand of one of the women he had come with. 

A fortnight went by before Castiel found the time or, perhaps, the courage to speak to the boy. At eight, he had not yet grown bold enough to defy his reserved nature, and he wasn’t certain that the boy wouldn’t strike him if he chose the wrong time to approach. He’d watched him when he could, and spent his afternoons planning ways in which he might approach him casually and make a friend of him. As of yet, it seemed he had rebuffed any person who was not among those he’d come with, and while Castiel felt it would have been warranted, he hadn’t seen him cry either. Castiel didn’t want to be rejected, but he didn’t feel that not approaching him was of any benefit now. The longer he waited, the greater the chance that the boy’s defenses would lower, and one of his siblings would swoop in and extinguish any hope he might have at starting a friendship with him. He didn’t want to take that chance, and he formulated a plan for himself. 

He’d heard him called _Dekanos_ , but it seemed that most of the women called him by a diminutive—Dean—and Castiel felt it suited him more thoroughly. When he finally approached him after their evening meal, where he sat, almost sullen, next to a particularly lovely slave girl that Castiel had noticed one of his older brothers eyeing, he called him by name to get his attention. “I am Castiel,” he told him. Introducing himself seemed the right move. Important, since he didn’t think anyone else had bothered when they tried to deal with him. “Would you like to see a trick?” he’d asked carefully, his shoulders squared. He had spent the entire day prior coming up with a ruse to speak to him, and he’d kept his dice bag at his hip all day just in case the opportunity presented itself before he was ready. He hoped they could play after he had shown him his trick. Maybe he’d be curious enough to want to learn how it was done. His older brothers always wanted to know how things were done when they were shown something they didn’t immediately understand, though they were more inclined to beat and break things to get their answers. Castiel hoped that Dean did not share this inclination, as he had no desire to be hit or shouted at.

Dean glanced up at him, but didn’t respond beyond that. Again, Castiel felt himself a bit unnerved. 

The young woman leaned down and said something to Dean in another language. She then straightened and spoke, stiltedly, to Castiel in his own tongue. “He does not understand,” she explained. 

“Oh,” was all Castiel could manage. He had forgotten that they were foreigners. Spoils of war. It was impressive that the girl knew his language at all. He might have said as much if he’d been able to think past the fact that he hadn’t considered there might be a communication barrier between them. 

She smiled nervously and said something else to Dean in their native language before urging him to his feet. “He will go,” she said as she bent her neck in deference. “He will play.” He wasn’t sure if she had been made nervous by his place in the household or by his eyes, but he didn’t see any point in thinking too much about it now. He didn’t like to think of it, but she belonged to his family’s house now, and it would have been natural for her to be nervous of saying the wrong thing to him. Still, he had come to accomplish an objective, and it seemed as though things were moving in his favor, whatever the reason. 

Castiel, still uncertain of himself as Dean stood before him, finally took Dean’s hand, and nodded at the girl once before he marched off to the courtyard with him. Surprisingly, he wasn’t met with any resistance, and even when they made it to his favorite spot near the gnarled old olive tree that stood there, Dean made no effort to pull away from him. Castiel let go of him and squatted at the base of the tree to free his dice from his belt so he could make them disappear and reappear elsewhere. There was a small part of him that felt excited at the prospect of a new companion, one his step-father and siblings hadn’t yet managed to taint against him, and who seemed unbothered by the color of his eyes. 

He had scarcely pulled his dice from their bag to show Dean what he wanted to do with them, when the boy started to cry **.** Castiel was so startled by it, that he found himself frozen for several long moments as Dean wept silently before him, fat tears streaming down his freckled cheeks, his tiny chest heaving. The look on his face was something more like grief than the rage Castiel had seen on him when he’d arrived. He’d half convinced himself that Dean was incapable of crying, as he had yet to see him shed even a single tear, though Castiel’s twin siblings who were of an age with Dean, had cried at least six times each in the same span of time. 

“W-what’s the matter?” Castiel asked, his own eyes wide. He didn’t have much experience with other children on a good day, let alone this, and he cast around for some way to quiet him. He collected his dice and tried to offer them, “Look, uhm, watch this.You’ll like it.” He held the dice out, and then twisted his wrist and blew on them to make them disappear. “They’re gone,” he announced. “I can do a different trick if you don’t like that one.” He’d forgotten the language barrier again, and when Dean seemed not to care or notice, and only cried harder, Castiel found himself at a profound loss. There was no one around for him to ask for help, and no slaves around that could translate for him. He pulled his hands through his hair, as he often did when met with a particularly difficult puzzle. At last, he settled on a new course of action. 

He fixed Dean with a hard look. His face was splotchy and red, and he had pulled his arms around himself in a failed attempt to keep it all in. Castiel’s own mother had told him on more than one occasion that tears were unbecoming, and he wondered if Dean’s mother had ever said the same. He wondered what had happened to his mother. Without another thought about it, Castiel wrapped his spindly arms around the boy and held him as tightly as he could manage without hurting him. He had learned early that his form belied his strength, and he had to be careful when he was physical with regular mortals. He didn’t know what more he could do, and so he stroked his hair, and told him over and over that things were going to be okay, and that he would protect him if he was very frightened. His father was a god and nothing would dare cross him if he willed it. They could be companions if he liked. He would ask about it in the morning. His dice had found their way back to his hip bag, but he didn’t bother pulling them out to show; it didn’t seem like it would make much difference. 

Dean continued to cry, but his breath hitched, and eventually, he wrapped his arms loosely around Castiel’s waist, his face buried in Castiel’s shoulder. When it began to grow dark, and the time came for them to make ready for bed, Castiel insisted to his nurse that he be allowed to keep Dean until he had a chance to speak with his parents. He carefully helped him wash and curled up with him in his own bed, an arm pulled around his narrow shoulders. They fell asleep quickly, and by morning, Dean’s tears had dried. 

At their morning meal, Castiel spoke solemnly to his mother, and expressed his desire to take Dean as a companion, though he left Dean to eat with his own people while he did this. It wouldn’t do to seem overeager, particularly if the decision was left, not to his mother, but her husband. He liked to deny Castiel whatever he could, though there was an invisible line that he seemed never to cross, a line that Castiel knew was drawn by his close connection to the gods. Had he been the offspring of another mortal man, Castiel was quite certain that he’d have been no better in his house than the slaves. 

His mother pulled her fingers through his hair, and nodded carefully as he spoke to her and listed the practical reasons he should have Dean as a companion, rather than ones based on any feelings that might have been stirred in him by Dean’s tears or quiet gaze. It was the extent of her affection for him, for they seldom embraced or kissed one another. He eventually reasoned that it was as much to protect him as it was to protect herself from her husband’s wrath. He simply detested Castiel’s existence, which meant that he would feel the same about anyone who extended him more than standard courtesy. 

“A companion would be good for you. Your father has made the suggestion,” was all she said, and then sent him away again. 

Castiel wasn’t certain whether she meant Hermes or her husband. She had the habit of referring to him as Castiel’s father whenever he wasn’t around to overhear it, though he could never reason as to why; the man could hardly stand the sight of him, and Castiel had no illusions as to anything counter. It had been a while since he had seen Hermes, so it was difficult to imagine it was him that had made such a suggestion, but it was equally difficult to imagine that his step-father would ever suggest something to benefit him. He didn’t question it though, and instead went back to his meal, where he made an effort to smuggle scraps away for Arete and her friends. 

Once it was officially agreed that Castiel would be allowed to keep Dean for good, they became nearly inseparable. Castiel went about his usual business—primarily meals and lessons—and Dean followed close behind him if Castiel didn’t take him by the hand first. Castiel often spoke to Dean, pointed things out to him and told him what they were called in his own language in hopes that Dean would feel inclined to do the same. He didn’t. It wasn’t that he minded that Dean didn’t speak, but that he wasn’t certain that what he said to him was understood. Even if Dean never spoke, Castiel thought that if he could understand him, they would both feel less lonely. Or he would anyway. He couldn’t be certain that Dean also felt lonely, but he remembered the way he had cried, and he thought he’d never seen anything lonelier. 

He often tried his new tricks on Dean, and gauged their success on whether or not they elicited a smile from him. There weren’t many others he could try them on without garnering looks of suspicion or outright dismissal, but with Dean it was only failure or success, and he liked the straight-forward simplicity of it. He never taunted or ignored him, which wasn’t such a bad change from what he was used to either. 

He also enjoyed showing Dean the birds that would come to visit him. When Arete and another sparrow landed on his shoulder in the courtyard one afternoon, Dean looked on with interest as Castiel communed with them. “They’re curious about you,” Castiel told him, though he knew Dean probably understood him about as well as he could have understood the birds. 

Nevertheless, he looked unimpressed, one brow lifted in either mild curiosity or skepticism. As Dean still refused to speak, Castiel had no real way of determining which it was. 

The look on Dean’s face amused him, but he didn’t push. He found that Dean responded better when he didn’t try to force things. Castiel turned his attention back to the birds to hear what else they had to say to him. It wasn’t like talking to people; he really had to listen to understand what animals wanted to communicate, but he had learned the patience for it over the years. It was more like when he spoke to Dean, though he didn’t think he was very good at that yet—while he felt the birds understood him, he was never quite sure whether Dean did. And it was only Dean’s sudden appearance before him that broke his concentration again. He’d turned his back on him to listen to the birds, and Dean had come around and gently tugged at the front of his tunic in the way Castiel had come to realize meant that he wanted his attention for a specific reason. 

His expression had changed, his cupid’s bow mouth twisted into something closer to what Castiel thought might have been curiosity. 

Castiel grinned and lifted his hand to his own shoulder and Arete hopped onto it. “Stay still,” he told Dean, and gripped his shoulder to indicate that he should keep his place. He grabbed Dean’s hand and opened his palm between them, and then gave it a firm tug to indicate that he should remain as he was, before he let Arete down onto Dean’s palm. 

Dean’s shoulders tensed when he first felt her small talons against his flesh, but Castiel hadn’t yet let go of him, and so the movement ended there. When he was certain that Dean would not make any sudden gestures, he let go of him, and Arete hopped along Dean’s open palm, her head turning this way and that as she examined him. Dean watched her intently, and when she eventually spread her wings and landed once again on Castiel’s shoulder, he grinned up at him, his eyes wide. Castiel smiled back, lifted the other sparrow from his other shoulder, and set it on Dean’s opposite one. Now they could match, he told him, and though Dean still said nothing, he seemed thrilled at having a bird on his shoulder.

No one else had ever gotten close enough for Arete to approve or disapprove of them very much, but Castiel was pleased that she seemed to like Dean as much as he did.

Although Castiel enjoyed even Dean’s silent company, it was not as appreciated among his siblings. Castiel felt this was chiefly because Dean had taken to him rather than any of them, but he had no real proof. One of his older brothers had written Dean off as dumb, and advised Castiel to be rid of him. “You’re strange enough on your own,” he’d told him off-handedly, “If you keep a fool as a pet, you’ll only seem that much worse. Besides, the only thing he’ll ever be good for is learning to use that mouth of his once he’s old enough. He should fetch a good price at the brothel when he does.” His expression twisted into a sneer, “Maybe he can practice on you if you’re so inclined to keep him around. Might be mutually beneficial—you’ll get some real use out of him, and increase his overall value.” Castiel had blackened his eye for it, and was sent away to his room for most of the day, separated from Dean as a result. Dean had stared blankly after him as one of the women from his mother’s retinue came and led him away by the hand. 

He couldn’t remember ever having been so angry, and he felt almost no remorse for having done it, except that he couldn’t talk to Dean now. If he’d been calmer, he might have plotted a more calculated assault that wouldn’t have gotten him in trouble, but the shocked look on his brother’s face when he’d launched himself at him had almost been worth it. Dean was his friend now, and whether or not he ever spoke a word, Castiel would not let anyone speak ill of him as long as he drew breath. 

As it happened, Hermes chose to visit him on that particular day, slipping in through his window in a gust of unnatural wind, and leaning casually against it with his arms over his chest and grace in every limb. Even then, Castiel wasn’t quite certain how he had come from such stock. Hermes looked almost frightfully young, with a permanently fixed smirk on his lips, like he was constantly in on a good joke. He glowed with the power of Olympus. If not for his bright eyes and wild curls, Castiel doubted he’d have found any true resemblance between them at all. Though, there wasn’t much to be said for that—the progeny of the gods could take all sorts of forms, and Castiel had heard tales of monstrously ugly children locked away, not only for their hideousness, but fear of their power. He supposed he should count himself lucky to be neither hideously ugly nor particularly powerful. 

“And what, my son, have you to tell me of your latest endeavors? Is your mother well? Do not bore me. Your grandfather beckons, and I would like to give an acceptable reason for being late to meet the king of the gods. A good story, I think, would suffice.” 

Castiel wasn’t certain of what endeavors he was meant to have had that a god wouldn’t find boring, but he spoke in his usual careful way, and told his father of Dean, and the nasty thing that his brother had said about him. Yes, his mother was well enough, but her husband could still be boorish, particularly at meals. Castiel related a prank he had played on him, which had caused the man to fart loudly all throughout a diplomatic meal, and then he showed him the trick he had been practicing on Dean earlier that week.

Hermes had laughed, a bright, tinny sound, like rain against a shield, and with a wave of his hand produced the gift of a new lyre and the suggestion that Castiel learn the boy’s language from someone else if he wanted to communicate with him so badly. “You’re clever enough for it, aren’t you?” he asked. “Use your gifts where you may.” Presently, Hermes explained, Castiel held favor among most of the gods, and so long as he didn’t disgrace himself, it should be easy enough to keep it. Then, as swiftly as he had come, he was gone. 

It was, perhaps, the only advice he could ever remember appreciating hearing from him. Hermes was known for his cunning, and while his advice could be sound, it usually came with some measure of biting wit that Castiel never learned to appreciate. Even his suggestion had come with the challenge, ‘You’re clever enough, aren’t you?’ As though there might be doubt as to whether or not he actually was. If he hadn’t been determined before, that question alone would have been enough to set him to the task. 

And so it went. Castiel studied as he always did during the day, and at night, once Dean had fallen soundly asleep, would sneak into the slave quarters and learn Dean’s native tongue from the girl that had originally translated for them. In return, he promised her that he would prevent his brother from ravishing her, and explained that though he was just a boy, his father was Hermes, son of Zeus, and she had his protection. Castiel seldom invoked his bloodline, but he couldn’t risk missing the opportunity to learn to communicate in a way that Dean could understand. Besides, even if he hadn’t been the son of a god, he was fairly certain that it wouldn’t have taken much for him to outwit his brutish older brother, who took after his own father in almost every way. She agreed, though tentatively, and Castiel promised he would make a good student for her. 

The absolute surprise on Dean’s face when, several weeks later, Castiel spoke his first complete sentence to him, filled him with a warm pride he’d never felt when he practiced drills or was praised for his speed and perfection in training. That feeling would have been enough to keep him learning, but he genuinely enjoyed the study of a new language, and he devoted himself to it wholly. True to his word, he kept a careful eye on his brother, and cunningly thwarted any advances he made in the general direction of the girl, who, he discovered, was called Amara. He often arranged for her to come along with him and Dean when they left the house, particularly if he had any doubts about her safety in his absence. As she had acted as Dean’s nurse since their arrival, no one questioned it. She would hold each of their hands, and sometimes acted as a translator for them if there was a concept that Castiel found too difficult to express with his limited vocabulary. Not that Dean ever spoke back to him, but this way, at least, Castiel was sure he understood. There was comfort in that. 

More than three moon cycles had passed after he began his lessons with Amara before Dean ever spoke to him. Castiel was being draped in a new chiton, and Dean looked on from a nearby corner of the room, his hand fisted around the dice Castiel had given him to play with while he waited.

“It matches your eyes,” he’d said, his own eyes downcast and shadowed by his eyelashes. Dean’s voice was soft, weak from disuse, but Castiel had heard his words as clearly as if he had spoken them right next to his ear. 

The shock of it nearly bowled him over, and the joy he felt at the fact that Dean had chosen to speak to him of his own accord was greater than anything he had words for. He scrambled from the stool he had been standing on and embraced him. Dean had gone a bit stiff at this, but he eventually softened and brought his arms around Castiel’s middle, and said nothing else. They had become physical enough with one another—primarily out of necessity since that was the easiest way for them to communicate, but also out of some genuine fondness they had fostered for one another—that Castiel understood that his reticence was not an indication of his regret at having spoken, or even a desire to pull away from him, but shock at the reaction hearing him speak had elicited from Castiel. It was doubtful that Dean knew how often Castiel had wondered what he might sound like or whether or not Dean would ever be able to whisper jokes in his ear when they ate meals together. He hadn’t known how much he’d longed for it until he’d heard his voice. He wasn’t sure of course, but Dean seemed like he might be a boy who was good at relating jokes he’d heard. Castiel was terribly eager to hear anything at all that he might have to say. 

Dean had held to his silence so steadfastly, that Castiel had been uncertain as to whether or not he had a voice at all, though Amara had assured him that he did. It had made no difference in his desire to continue learning their language—regardless of whether or not Dean had a voice, he wanted to be able to communicate with them both more easily. Still, he had hoped that if Dean could speak to him, he one day would. Now that he had, Castiel’s joy was nearly uncontainable. 

It was after this that their friendship truly began to deepen. At first, they spoke only at night, after they were left alone in Castiel’s room, in hushed tones, nose to nose in his bed. Dean had remained less than forthcoming to begin with. Their early conversations consisted mostly of Castiel asking him whether or not he had liked their meals, or other questions that required only short answers—things like his favorite food or color, or if he wanted to go with him to the forest the next day. No matter what responses he got, Castiel found he was just happy to hear Dean’s voice. He hadn’t ever had a companion so near his age to talk to, and though Dean was younger, he didn’t mind it the way others might have. Sometimes, if Dean seemed unwilling to say much, he made a game of counting with him, as high as they could manage, with each of them saying every other number. It didn’t require Dean to divulge any information of himself, and Castiel still got the privilege of hearing his voice. He delighted in it, and would do this with him until Dean either fell asleep or fell silent.

As time passed, Dean’s tongue began to loosen. At first, he had refused to speak around anyone who wasn’t Castiel. Not even Amara. But this stubbornness seemed to melt away gradually, and he sometimes spoke stiltedly to Castiel over dinner or made a request of Amara. Their conversations were held almost entirely in Dean’s native tongue, which only improved Castiel’s ability. He took great pleasure in having a conversation partner whose level he could nearly match. Amara was patient, but Castiel had been too aware of how much he didn’t know when she spoke.

When they were alone, Dean explained that he’d been traded, his mother’s and brother’s lives for his own. He had been a prince, but he could never be again now that he belonged to Castiel’s household. His father had been forced to denounce him before they beheaded him. He didn’t miss being a prince, he said, but he missed his brother and fair-haired mother. He missed the sea. 

When Castiel asked him if there was divinity in him too, Dean had shaken his head. “My mother, she came from another continent,” he explained, thus she was fair. His father’s people had not accepted her, and so he imagined she had fled with his brother, back to where she came from. He wasn’t exactly sure where that was, but it was of little consequence now. “I can’t go back,” he yawned. Dean had snuggled against him then, tucked his face into Castiel’s chest, and fell asleep. 

Castiel had felt something like sadness at the discovery that Dean held no divinity after all. He hadn’t realized that he’d solidified such a fiction in his head about him in the time that he’d been silent. He supposed he had used it to form an artificial bond between them—two outcast boys with the burden of godhead on their shoulders. He reasoned to himself that the true bond they had forged when Dean began speaking to him was better than his fairy-tale one anyway. They could belong to each other now, and with or without their families, they would no longer feel alone in the world. He wrapped his arms firmly around Dean and slept as well. 


	2. STORGE (Familiar Love)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our boys grow up a little.

As the years wore on, and the two of them grew closer, never one without the other,  they learned each other as thoroughly as they knew themselves. While Dean had trailed after him or Castiel had dragged him along when they first began their companionship, they became more like equals once Dean found his voice again. Before he spoke, unless he was particularly averse to something, Dean seemed more or less willing to do whatever it was Castiel decided he wanted to do on any given day. However, once he had chosen to show this part of himself—to answer when Castiel spoke to him rather than listen intently—Castiel discovered that he was as stubborn in all things as he had been about not speaking at all. To further any stubborn endeavor he might decide to undertake, it also seemed he had a talent for evading trouble of all sorts. 

Where Castiel needed to plan and strategize in order to pull off any level of real mischief, Dean was more likely to walk up and, for instance, eat a stolen fig in front of its owner, while convincing them that they had wanted to give it to him all along. He was sweet of face and sweet of voice, and Castiel supposed those traits aided him a great deal to that end. It was a marvel to watch how easily he could charm someone into forgetting they were meant to be angry with him, but Castiel liked it best when they worked together to accomplish their trickery. Castiel was, for all his planning and strategizing, still quite good at sleight of hand tricks, and it was a skill he had learned to fall back on when things didn’t pan out in his favor. He wasn’t as good as Dean with his words, and while he knew people could find him handsome, he knew that his features tended to have an unnerving effect rather than a charming one. It worked better for him to just outsmart people. When combined with Dean’s knack for sweet-talk, they were nigh unstoppable if they set their minds on a particular task. 

On more than one occasion, they used their combined talents to retaliate against Castiel’s siblings for things they had said or done against him, or to protect Amara from unwanted advances. She was beautiful, and when Dean began talking regularly to him, Castiel had explained to him the bargain he’d had with her about keeping her safe in exchange for language lessons.The idea had amused Dean, and he had easily agreed to helping Castiel to defend her honor.

“She protected me when your step-father took us,” Dean had said, his eyes downcast. “I would not mind returning the favor.” 

Looking after her in this way became one of their favorite pastimes. Although, neither of them spent as much time in Amara’s company as they used to, they liked to keep an eye on her, and she was always ready with a sly glance in their direction when it was apparent that they had managed to help her out of a sticky situation. She would usually find time to thank them softly, using her and Dean’s native language, and Castiel was always secretly pleased he understood them so easily, though it had been years since he had begun learning from them. He was fairly certain the only thing in the world he liked more than getting up to mischief with Dean, and running interference for Amara, was their nightly talks, which still took place with them crammed nose to nose in his bed. Dean had one of his own now, but he seldom used it. Even if they started out in  their own beds, he often ended up in Castiel’s, and Castiel never thought to complain, even when there was hardly space to turn over. He’d grown used to Dean’s constant company, the warmth of him against his chest or at his back, and tended to sleep better with him near anyway. 

As a slave, and despite being treated as an equal to Castiel in nearly every other way, Dean was not permitted to learn combat. Castiel’s lessons in combat were the most significant amount of time they spent apart, and while Castiel knew he could function just as well as he ever had on his own, the hours he spent training were his least favorite of the day. Much to the dismay of his tutors, he hadn’t grown into the warrior mindset they had hoped he would achieve when he had been a young boy. He would be a more than proficient soldier by the time he had to go off to battle, but he derived no joy from it. He didn’t care to be a warrior, regardless of his accuracy throwing a spear or his skill in wielding a sword, but he went along with it because it was expected of him. And because if he didn’t—if he refused to go to lessons or attend training—the only thing they ever took away from him was Dean. Perhaps they realized there was little else they could take from him that he would mind so much. He had never been particularly attached to material objects, and apart from the birds he liked, Dean’s removal was the only thing that ever held any sway over him. Barring him from Dean was much easier for them than barring him from nature. For this reason, it was simply in his best interests to do as he was told, and limit any rebellious behavior to practical jokes. 

He had been too young when they became friends, and was too young, still, to know how carefully he should guard his own heart. To know that Dean could one day be seen by less savory types as a weakness by which to overthrow him. 

It was his step-father who liked the most to remind him of this particular weakness, and he did it most often when one of his siblings felt humiliated enough or took enough offense to something he and Dean had done to complain to him. Outside of these moments, Castiel largely kept to his best behavior, even when lessons bored him out of his skull.

The attempts he made  _ not  _ to think of his companion during the hours they had to spend apart only aided him though, as he tended to train harder as a means of pushing how he missed him from his mind. When he was busy, working his body to its limits or puzzling through various stratagems, his focus was clear. He didn’t need to think of anyone or anything else. But the moment he was allowed to rest or allowed his mind to wander, he would feel it—an ache in his chest that reminded him of the loneliness he had known as a young child. An ache that had formed when he had realized that he was not like other children, and because of this, they would never accept him as one of their own. An ache that he knew would ease as soon as he saw Dean and they could share a mischievous grin or a warm embrace between them. 

At thirteen, Castiel still preferred to lounge in the courtyard with Dean, either teaching him silly tricks with dice or feeding the birds that visited, rather than to go to his lessons. Arete had met her end only a couple of years before, and though Dean had held his hand and tended to him as he wept for her loss for nights on end, he often still missed her terribly. Before Dean, she had been his most constant companion and friend. He had yet to meet another bird he’d found such a fondness for, though many of the others were nearly as friendly. Castiel had never been more grateful to have Dean than he had been then, as he was certain he could not have bore her loss alone. Besides, when he felt particularly melancholy about her, Dean was happy to sit quietly with him and watch the other birds flit about, or feed them, or simply tell funny stories of times that the three of them had spent together. 

While Castiel tended to fret, and thus had to throw himself into whatever he was supposed to be doing when they couldn’t be together, Dean had learned to make himself useful in other ways when they were apart. He became relatively skillful in the way of wood and metalworks.  As it turned out, Dean’s charm, which until then they had put to use for less productive, more mischievous deeds, had other advantages. He became an apprentice one day, as though it didn’t take most boys, even ones older than Castiel, weeks of begging and proving themselves to get a master to take them on. Dean convinced one, and then another with seemingly little effort. He hadn’t made a fuss of it, so that Castiel wasn’t even aware that he had been taken on by anyone until Dean met him one day after his lessons with nicked fingers, and the gift of a little, imperfectly carved sparrow. 

“For you,” he’d said, color in his cheeks. “To remind you of Arete when you’re sad. I’m not very good yet, but I’ll get better. I wanted the first thing I made to be for you.”

Naturally, Castiel had thrown his arms around him and hugged him so tightly that Dean had to remind him that he wasn’t a god and couldn’t withstand being crushed by even half of one. Castiel spent the evening carefully tending to the cuts on Dean’s fingers, cleaning and wrapping each one before topping them off with quick, silly, little kisses that he hadn’t been able to stop himself from bestowing on each of them. He still felt so grateful and flattered that he’d thought of him. Dean didn’t seem to mind, and made no move to stop him being so ridiculous. It was almost like a game, and they laughed together until their sides were sore. Castiel traced the lines of Dean’s carving with his own fingers that night until they both fell asleep. It was probably the best gift he had ever received, and that counted the ones he had been given by Hermes throughout the years.

By the time Dean had turned fourteen, it was evident that his charm and beauty were not qualities that would fade with his childhood, the way his baby fat seemed to be doing, and this worried Castiel. Though he had been furious when his brother had remarked upon Dean’s worth so many years ago, he’d never forgotten his words, and the lingering looks of men and women of varying ages and backgrounds were not lost on him the way they seemed to be lost on Dean. Despite it being forbidden, he decided to teach Dean to defend himself, should he ever need it.  They were apart more often then, their separate studies demanding more of them as they drew ever closer to manhood. Castiel couldn’t be with him all the time, though he sometimes sent birds to follow along after him if he felt particularly nervous or distressed. Dean caught on to this quickly enough, and though he often informed him that he was being ridiculous, he seemed to realize it was something Castiel needed to do in order to feel at ease. He would often return to their room with whichever bird Castiel sent along to look after him perched on his shoulder as though there was nothing unusual about it. Teaching him to defend himself was simply one more thing Castiel could do to assuage his own anxieties about Dean’s safety.

“Are you paying attention?” he asked for probably the fifth time when Dean had flopped back into the grass. 

Dean rolled onto his stomach and propped his chin in his hand, a lock of his fair hair falling onto his forehead, “Of course I’m paying attention. But won’t you get in trouble if we’re caught? Wouldn’t you rather go for a swim?”

Castiel went to pull Dean to his feet, “I won’t get in trouble. We can swim once you’ve learned to execute this properly. It’s important, Dean.”

“Then won’t  _ I _ get in trouble?” Dean allowed himself to be led by the arm to where Castiel had been standing before him. “You know the laws better than I.” He didn’t sound particularly concerned, and looked sort of bored by the whole thing.

They’d gone into the forest so they’d be hidden from prying eyes, and left had asked Amara to cover for them, but Dean’s words struck him and he hesitated for a moment. The very last thing he wanted was to get Dean in trouble, but he also had no desire to find him assaulted or violated because he hadn’t been around to protect him. Even if he sent a sparrow after him, whatever misfortune befell him might be well over before Castiel was able to arrive on the scene, and he didn’t think he could bear arriving to find him in anything less than perfect health. He might save him from the lash if they were caught doing this, but he doubted there would be anything he could say or do to comfort him if someone decided to take advantage of Dean in his absence. The thought scared him, and he wasn’t sure if it was because of what it might mean for Dean or what it might mean for himself when he went after anyone who felt they had a right to touch him. Castiel wasn’t especially quick to temper, but he knew he could be provoked where Dean was concerned, and he didn’t trust himself because of it. The thought made him sick, but he wouldn’t have put it past one of his older brothers to have his way with him in a misguided attempt to put him in his place, or a completely malicious one, simply to hurt him. He’d tear through an entire city to find the person who thought they could put their hands on Dean and get away with it, and he’d probably kill any of his brothers or sisters without a second thought if it came to that. Better for them both if Dean could handle the situation before it got to that point. 

“Stand like this,” Castiel told him, having decided to ignore the question, and instead position Dean correctly. “If someone comes at you like this, you should move—!” he had shifted his weight to grab Dean, but before he had completed his own movement, Dean executed the maneuver he had been trying to show him, and landed him on his back, before he flopped down on top of him crosswise to render him nearly immobile. 

Castiel huffed under Dean’s weight and blinked up at the trees above him. He should have known better than to let his guard down with even a bored Dean. In his own way, he was nearly as quick minded as Castiel, though he didn’t wear the tension of it the way Castiel did. His shoulders were rarely ever as rigid as Castiel’s, and he never seemed to notice, or at least not to mind, when people leered at him, though it could drive Castiel mad if he let his mind get away from him with it. It was as though nothing ever troubled him, though if roles were reversed, Castiel could think of plenty of worries his own mind might be consumed by. 

“I told you I was paying attention,” he said, his tone exasperated as he let himself go limp across Castiel’s midsection. “Can we swim now? You said we could after I learned.”

“You learn too quickly for your own good,” Castiel said fondly as he raised himself to his elbows. “I thought you would need more practice.” 

He lifted his head and grinned at him slyly, “We can practice more if you like.” He sat up and got to his feet before he offered Castiel his hand, “But after we swim, or if you don’t want to swim, then we can fish. Anything but more of this right now. You were not meant to be a great teacher, I think.”

Castiel scowled but took Dean’s offered hand and got to his feet, “Fine, we’ll try again later. “I’m not in the mood to swim though, I’ll watch, or else nap on the bank.” 

Dean hummed, and wove their fingers together as they made their way toward the river, “We can just dip our feet in, all right? We can nap together, and then we’ll go back in time to eat. Also, you have to let me teach you something too. It’s only fair. No fun if I’m always the student. Besides,  _ you  _ might learn a thing or two about teaching if you have to learn from someone else.”

Castiel couldn’t help the small smile that found its way to his face, “If you wish it.” There wouldn’t be any arguing it; like his beauty, Dean’s stubbornness had only continued to grow with his age. Besides, Castiel, without realizing it, had grown quite unable to deny Dean most things. He rather enjoyed being able to fulfill even his most basic wishes, and any arguments they had were brief and infrequent because of it. Although Dean was a little younger, Castiel was fairly helpless before him, though neither of them ever acknowledged this fact. It was simply another aspect of their friendship that didn’t seem to need mentioning. 

In exchange for his combat lessons, Dean taught him how to bring forth life from a block of wood. He still didn’t seem particularly serious about learning to fight, but he did as Castiel instructed when they could find time for it. So long as Castiel held up his end of their bargain, Dean would do the same. He could be terribly noble that way, and a word between them had never been broken because of Dean’s faith that he’d never betray his trust. Obviously, Castiel never did. His loyalties were entirely Dean’s. 

Dean was clever at carving animals and creatures of all kinds, and Castiel took pride in the fact that his friend had such talent with his hands. He found that he wasn’t half so skilled as Dean, which was surprising since he could manage so well making things that already existed disappear and reappear. He had assumed that carving figures would hardly be any different. He was wrong, of course. Though it didn’t come as naturally to him as it did to Dean, he tried his best to be a good student. Still, his best figure was a misshapen tortoise, and it looked nothing so life-like as the things Dean managed to create. 

Dean made himself popular among some of the younger children, as he liked carving figures from stories—harpies, satyrs, and the like—and gave them as toys. Sometimes he used them to tell stories he made up about a hero he had, not-so-subtly, fashioned after Castiel. If Castiel bothered to question him about it, he liked to say that he was simply preparing the masses for the real thing. One day, he’d sing of Castiel’s actual deeds, and he’d be pleased he had practiced when that day finally came. Castiel still harbored doubts about whether or not he would live up to the expectations that had been placed upon him, and the only reason he didn’t put an end to Dean’s fun was because he knew that for Dean, it was only a game, and he didn’t really think about it the way everyone else did. He’d remain his friend whether he came into his glory or not. It offered him a small measure of peace when he thought of all the ways he might be abandoned if he reached a certain age and proved himself more of a disappointment than anyone thought possible. Dean would be all he had.

At night, whatever the day might bring, they would rejoin, like two drops of water, always nose to nose. They could tell the jokes they’d overheard or make up stories, or recount the things that happened to them in the time they had been apart during the day, and Castiel still performed clever magic tricks for Dean’s entertainment. Occasionally, he would allow him to tie him up and time his escape, as Dean got no end of joy in inventing complicated knots for him to navigate. To supplement his occasional stories, Dean had also gotten quite good at forming his hands into shadow shapes on the wall when he had none of his carved figures at his disposal. And when they had exhausted themselves for the night, Dean liked to draw his finger down the length of Castiel’s nose and press a quick little kiss to the tip of it before they’d fall asleep. This particular habit had started the night Castiel had nursed Dean’s fingers, riddled with tiny nicks and cuts from the carving he had made of Arete when he had first begun his apprenticeship, and simply never stopped. Castiel found he’d never had any desire to stop it.

His soul found an unmatched peace in the quiet of those evenings, and he was often able to forget that one day he was expected to immortalize himself with a heroic deed, become a king or a god, even when Dean told stories about him slaying monsters or outwitting the gods. It was an easy thing to forget as a child of Hermes anyway; he still seldom made time to see him,  often not bothering to appear to him more than once a year or so. Which, of course, Castiel found he minded less and less in the years since Dean had come to him.

While more often than not, his mind was too preoccupied with other things to dwell on it very much, if he let his thoughts wander during the deepest shades of the night, while Dean slept soundly next to him, he could justify the protective feelings that had driven him to start their secret combat lessons. Though he knew Dean found it somewhat unnecessary and only went along with the idea to humor him, he couldn’t stomach the thought of not bothering to teach him at all . Dean still retained the glowing youth that so reminded Castiel of his father’s Olympian radiance, and which left Castiel still unconvinced that Dean didn’t have a divine drop of blood in his veins. He had asked his father once, whether or not he knew if Dean was of Divine lineage, and though Hermes had given him some cryptic nonsense about how even he wasn’t certain of every single mortal he might have a relation to, particularly since Zeus seemed to have such a healthy appetite for lovely women, Castiel hadn’t really cared what the true answer was. When Dean smiled, Castiel was certain he rivaled Apollo, and entire constellations could be mapped upon the freckles on his skin. Mortal or not, he was, even by godly standards, beautiful,  and Castiel knew that, above all else—perhaps even more than riches or fame—people coveted beauty. And if they could not possess it, then he knew they detested it. Such desires were dangerous when left unchecked. 

Of himself, he could see how he had grown into his body and taken on the easy, lithe proportions of his father. His hair had only grown more unruly, and it framed his face and eyes in a way that, while still unnerving for most everyone apart from Dean, made it clear that divinity flowed through him. Where his own beauty fell more along the lines of the sort of thing that people detested—frightening and wild—Dean’s had just the opposite effect. He was so beautiful that they all wanted him, and he was so charming that they believed they could have him. The attention that others showed them was proof enough of that. With Castiel, they almost always averted their eyes if they happened to look upon him directly, but at Dean, they looked openly, hungrily. It was easy for anyone to want him, and Castiel often had the uneasy feeling that he didn’t have much room to resent them for it. Still, he tried not to dwell too deeply on this, and spent his time making sure no one felt particularly inclined to act on their desires. 

Perhaps it was the way Dean’s shoulders had broadened and his waist had narrowed. Perhaps it was the way his baby fat melted away, which simply added to the delicate cut of his features, but his beauty only drew the eyes of others more frequently with each passing day. When they ate dinner or took a stroll in the square or went to the baths, he could feel the appreciative stares of men and women who made no effort to hide how they wanted him. It made Castiel uncomfortable, but Dean had also retained the seamless quality Castiel had noted in him when he first set eyes on him. He never looked awkward or out of place, and since he now spoke easily in both his native tongue and Castiel’s, he had no trouble with the diplomacy of the thing. Where Castiel would simply have brushed past someone, Dean gave them the illusion of mutual interest, even when Castiel knew he had none.

“You’re going to get yourself in trouble that way,” Castiel told him once on a trip home from the baths. “I want you to be more careful.”

A young man, only a few years older than they were, had approached them just before they decided to leave the bathhouse, and had spoken to Dean almost as though Castiel hadn’t been right next to him. Castiel hadn’t been bothered by that, but had instead been disturbed by how casually he touched him. He’d had to stop himself from removing the man, and instead watched Dean’s face carefully for any sign of distress. 

Dean smiled, and just as casually pulled away in order to shift his position so that he was facing the young man a bit more fully, but in a way that put him more in Castiel’s space than he had been before. Castiel curbed the urge to wrap a protective arm around him by clenching and unclenching his fist beneath the water. Dean spoke to the man just long enough to be polite, but by the time he lifted himself out of the baths to leave, it was evident that he was even more enamored of Dean than he had been upon his initial approach. Castiel had seen that look countless times before, even among his own siblings before it became clear to them that Dean’s loyalties belonged solely to Castiel. It made him uneasy every time, but Dean either never noticed or never cared. 

Castiel had followed him quickly out of the water, and to someone who didn’t know any better, the assumption might have been made that it was Castiel, rather than Dean who lacked his total freedom. He had never openly stated that Dean’s fine features made him anxious of anyone that approached them, but he dropped warnings for him where he could, and hoped Dean would take heed.

Dean had clapped him on the shoulder with one hand and reached up to ruffle his curls with the other as they walked side-by-side, “I am careful. I’ll be fine while I’ve you to protect me,” he grinned. “You worry too much, Castiel. Anyway, no one would dare touch me. I belong to you, after all.” He said it with such nonchalance that Castiel was almost willing to believe that his own fears were misplaced. It wasn’t often they discussed Dean’s status, but when it was mentioned, it was always by Dean himself, and always in this off-handed way. Castiel took it to mean that he was more aware of his station than he liked to let on, even if between the two of them, it held absolutely no meaning. 

“ It is of no consequence,” Castiel had murmured softly, though he did not think that Dean could hear him. Beauty and desire could drive men to madness, and he had no doubt as to whether Dean’s beauty was such. 

  
He redoubled his efforts to continue their lessons in the days that followed. Whether or not his worries were misplaced, he would not have Dean go defenseless in his absence. He had the feeling that one day, Dean would run into a man or woman who found themself immune to his charms, and had never once been denied in their life, and if, on that day, Castiel was not near, he did not want Dean to feel it was his place as a slave to endure ravishment. He wanted him to fight; wanted it to be his very first instinct whenever anyone thought they could get away with laying hands on him. Dean was family to him, even more than blood, and he would do all in his power to protect him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, Chapter 2 on schedule. Not too shabby, me. There's not much to say about this chapter. I wanted to show some time passing while also giving a bit of background on how their relationship operates, and how they support one another. I came up with a ton of ideas for other fics this week, despite having neither the time nor the energy to work as much as I'd like on the next chapter of this fic 😑 I don't know why my brain is like this...Thanks for reading!


	3. LUDUS (Playful Love)

It was in the spring of his seventeenth year that many things changed for Castiel very quickly. A tournament was hosted, and he was expected to participate. Generally, he stayed away from participating seriously in any and all games of the type, but he was nearly a man by then, and expectations around his godhead were high. Achilles had been to war by the time he was Castiel’s age, and it never failed to come up in conversation when he had the least desire to discuss it. He had not yet shown any indication of becoming a king as his mother hoped, and he had shown little interest in anything that wasn’t his studies or spending time with Dean. In a year, he would be expected to join the military if he wasn’t already engaged in some probably life-threatening quest by that time, and at the least, he would be expected to garner glory for himself and his family while he was there. It was still not something he cared to think about overmuch, but he was more aware of the expectations upon him, as he had been from boyhood—perhaps even more significantly than ever before—and he did not argue the point when his step-father demanded he participate in the games in order to uphold the honor of their house. Castiel imagined that the real hope of everyone, save Dean and his mother, was that he’d actually humiliate himself, and they could get on with hating him for a more legitimate reason than being born the son of a god. Nevertheless, refusal would have been deemed a greater humiliation, and he thought he would at least make them work for it if that was to be his fate. 

He would compete in the javelin throw and the foot races. He found them the lesser of all evils, as he felt they would not require any great show of skill or force on his part. No one could fault him for being swift, and sure-footed, and as a strong breeze could make the difference in the javelin throw, even in someone with great skill, he felt that they would draw the least amount of attention. If he failed in these categories for any reason, it could only be said that fortunes were not in his favor so long as his form was good. The risk of any undue shame would thus be minimal. His step-father favored brute strength above intellect or strategy, and if Castiel avoided competing in those games which involved such shows of strength, then he needn’t deal with the fallout of humiliating any of his half siblings should he best them. 

Confident about both of his chosen games, when the day arrived, he felt almost no anxiety about competing. He simply would rather he hadn’t had to. He knew he needed to complete each competition and refrain from making a fool of himself, or otherwise over-performing while he was at it, so that was his plan. Dean had helped him train in the weeks leading up, and he had been convinced that there was no chance he could fail. Castiel, though confident in his own abilities, was never one to feel himself infallible. Fate was too unpredictable for him to be so certain. If he could manage to participate without standing out too much—either for his success or failure—then he would count himself fortunate. 

“I have a gift for you,” Dean said as he helped massage olive oil into Castiel’s limbs. They were cutting it close, as they were the only ones still preparing, but the sun was bright, and Castiel felt unhurried, particularly in Dean’s company. No one could blame him for wanting to be thoroughly prepared, and as long as he didn’t miss the start, it would be fine. Dean could not compete, but being of a noble family, Castiel was allowed to have his assistance to prepare, and though he might have been fine on his own, Dean insisted that he needed to help in order to make sure Castiel shone to his best advantage in front of everyone. Castiel wasn’t entirely convinced by this, but Dean’s presence kept him in an easy, pleasant mood, and he didn’t argue. 

“Hmm?” Castiel titled his head to one side as Dean ran his hands along his shoulders from behind him. He’d already done it once before, but Castiel didn’t feel the need to point it out. Dean seemed to be in a good mood as well, and there was no harm in being a little more thorough. 

“I’ll give it to you once you win your events,” he told him and stood on his toes to press a quick kiss to the side of his neck. It was chaste, almost more of a jape than anything meaningful, as all his kisses were. Dean had grown more affectionate as they had grown older, and while Castiel had no problem with this, he tended to reserve his own affection for times when they were alone together. The only time Dean tended to hold himself back was when they were in the presence of Castiel’s parents or siblings. He was generally more subdued around them than he was when they were out or alone together. Despite being allowed to serve as his companion, they still very much saw Dean as a slave, and though Castiel never would have let them touch him, Dean had enough sense of self-preservation to keep his head down in their company. 

Although he was as careless as ever with anyone else that might find themselves in their company—his smile open and charming, and his manner always affable—Castiel had grown less apprehensive that something awful might befall him when they were least expecting it. It probably had more to do with the fact that Dean’s confidence that nothing of the sort would ever happen to him as long as Castiel was around had only grown over the years, rather than any audaciousness of his own. Not to mention the fact that he had grown rather proficient at defending himself thanks to his lessons with Castiel, which had petered out a bit due to a lack of time and Dean’s disinterest. Dean tended to have enough belief for the both of them, no matter what they did, so Castiel tried not to worry. 

Castiel turned to face him and took him by the elbows, “And if I don’t win? Will you withhold your gift?” He squinted at him, amusement on his face. They were of a height these days, but Dean was still just a little shorter. 

He grinned up at him and his freckles stood out in the light of the day, “I don’t think you should risk it.” 

Castiel laughed and leaned in to press a quick kiss against his forehead, “Then don’t take your eyes from me. I’ll win both laurels for you. A trade. Your gift for mine.” He turned away from him, and Dean caught him by the hand. When he turned back, there was an odd expression on Dean’s features—odd because Castiel rarely ever saw him look anything like uncertain. 

“Dean?” He glanced over his shoulder to be sure he still had time, though it didn’t matter. If Dean needed him, he’d miss his events without a second thought. 

“I want-”

Castiel’s brows drew together, “Is everything all right?” he asked, genuinely concerned. The sudden shift from his usually playful Dean to this uncertain one made him nervous. He brought his hand up to cup Dean’s jaw and spoke gently to him, “Tell me, and I’ll help if I can.”

Dean looked up at him, his expression somewhat startled for a moment before he offered a brief smile. He still looked tense around the eyes as he carefully stepped out of Castiel’s space, “I’m fine.” His voice had broken a little but he smiled again, this time a bit more genuinely, “I- I just wanted to say that you look…” he cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “You look perfect. Like a hero. Like a god. Win like one.” He glanced away from him and tugged at his chiton. “For me,” he added softly. 

The crease between Castiel’s brows deepened as he glanced down at his glistening body. He didn’t think he looked much different than usual, certainly not any different than the other oiled young men already waiting to start their competitions. And except for his concern for Dean, and his growing confusion, he didn’t particularly feel any different either. 

Dean looked flushed as he took another step away from him and nearly stumbled, “Go on, or they’ll start without you. I’ll see you after.”

“Dean-”

“I’m fine, really.” He waved him off and then turned to leave. “Go,” he called from over his shoulder as he sprinted toward the area reserved for spectators. 

Castiel went, though he was not sure that he believed that Dean was as fine as he insisted. He took his place among the other men and tried to focus. If he won the laurels, Dean would have no excuse not to tell him what had been on his mind. Besides, Dean’s gentle request—that he win  _ for him _ —had struck a nerve. He wouldn’t deny him what it was within his power to give, and he felt, for once, certain that he could give him this. 

The foot races were easiest. Castiel was a son of Hermes, after all, and there was no god or mortal more sure-footed or swift than his father. Perhaps he would not be able to outrun a god, but he could run laps around the other men if he so chose. Still, he kept a respectable pace, and hardly had to exert himself to come out the clear winner. The javelin took a bit more effort from him—strategy—but he had no intention of letting Dean down, and he took that event as well, much to the disappointment of one of his younger brothers, who he knew had practiced tirelessly to do well. Had it not been for Castiel, he would have won. Had it not been for Dean, Castiel probably would have let him. 

Once he had scraped the oil from his body and bathed, he returned to his room to relax, where he found Dean waiting for him, a bowl of stuffed, honeyed figs in his lap. Castiel crossed the room and placed one of the laurels he had been awarded for his victories on Dean’s head. “Dessert before dinner, is this to be my gift?” he asked, half amused. 

“You could have beaten them more thoroughly,” Dean said lightly, “You never hold back when you’re racing me. You shouldn’t with them either.” He lifted the bowl a bit, “But no, I just thought you might like to share these now. I took all the best ones for us.” 

Castiel rolled his eyes, fondly, “That sounds more like a ruse for you to have them early, than any consideration for me.” Dean had a bit of a weakness for sweets, though he didn’t always like to admit it. “And your ego isn’t so delicate as theirs,” Castiel told him. “I don’t think I’ll be forgiven for at least an age for taking the javelin.” He’d never seen such fury tinged humiliation on his brother’s face. “I never compete because it doesn’t seem worth it. I don’t relish in it. It was bad enough to beat them as I did. Even expected, it leaves a bitter taste in their mouths.” He pulled his fingers through his hair and briefly brought them down over the bridge of his nose as he sighed, “I haven’t the charm or beauty of the great Achilles. Nor do I command the same respect as Heracles once did. No one wishes to be bested by me. Though, for you, I’d best them all again. Will you tell me now what troubled you before the games?”

Dean moved the bowl from his lap and took Castiel’s hand as he stood before him. “I’m sure you must be many times lovelier than Achilles ever was. Your eyes alone would put him to shame,” he ran the tip of his finger down the length of Castiel’s nose in the way he usually reserved for the moments before they both fell asleep, though he didn’t move his finger from the tip of it or kiss him when he was done. The color was high in his cheeks as he spoke, “And Heracles was not half so clever as you. I...thought you looked every inch a hero today.” 

Castiel stared back at him and gently lifted Dean’s hand away from his face by grasping it, “My eyes make everyone but you uncomfortable. And cunning is for tricksters and thieves. It sets them all on edge. They would sooner have you as a winner than me.” This was not where their conversation was supposed to go. He wanted Dean to talk to him about  what had been bothering him earlier, not discuss his own insecurities. “Anyone looks well bronzed and oiled,” he said in an attempt to lighten things. “Even you,” he poked Dean’s forehead with the tip of his finger. “Will you stop changing the subject and talk to me now?”

Dean dropped his gaze an d pressed his forehead to Castiel’s shoulder as he spoke, “I would have you best me,” he said softly, his other hand settling at Castiel’s neck. “As many times as you were willing. I would never tire of it, and never wish for anything else. I would make you  _ my  _ god.” 

Castiel was struck speechless, uncertain as to whether Dean was carrying on ignoring him or answering his question after all, and his face grew hot at those words. They had always been open and affectionate with one another, but Dean had never spoken to him like this before. He knew what people assumed about them, had heard the whispers when Castiel had shown no interest in the women around him, and still dallied when it came to making a name for himself, but they meant nothing. Without proof of anything, and there was none, because they had never been more than close friends, there was nothing that could be done. It would have probably been more shocking to everyone had they known for certain that they were not lovers, close as they were. Though, it was just as well that no one ever brought attention to it, as lying with Dean in such a way would have certainly meant the lash for him. Even his brothers avoided teasing them by using their affection for one another as a weapon. Castiel had never once tolerated it, and though they might have been able to withstand his rages while he was still a boy, they all knew that if the mood struck, there would be no match for him now that he was nearly a man.

Slaves were not permitted to lay with anyone free. It was one of the many things Castiel never dwelt on, and could not have bore the thought for long if he had. He could scarcely imagine Dean coming to harm because of something he had done. Even the combat lessons had been allowance he had made for this rule because the potential for harm to Dean was greater if he didn’t teach him, than if he carried on the way they had. This would be something else entirely. They knew they loved one another. The  _ type _ of love made little difference between them, so the prospect of their relationship moving beyond what they had now was almost frightening. 

Eventually, Castiel cleared his throat, uncertain of what he should say or do next to make this situation less of something that would get either of them into trouble. “Earlier,” he said finally, grasping for anything that might provide a change of subject for them, “Before the games. You looked as though you wanted to say something. What was it? I…was worried I’d done something to upset you.” Maybe he had misinterpreted Dean’s words. If he had, then they could go on as they were. Nothing between them would change, and Dean would still be safe. 

After a moment of what must have been quiet deliberation, Dean tilted his face up and pressed his lips to Castiel’s. His mouth was soft and full and inviting, and once he got over the initial shock of it, Castiel couldn’t help kissing him right back. He knew he shouldn’t, that he should pull away and put an end to it before things got out of hand, but his heart was thundering in his ears, and it deafened him to any sense of reason he thought he had. He raised his hand to Dean’s face and held him gently. He had never been kissed this way before—had, in fact, never been kissed—but the tenderness that rose in him as Dean’s lips moved against his made him certain that he’d like to do it again. Though their mouths were clumsy, they were determined, and unwilling to part from one another, and they worked at it until they found a rhythm that seemed right for them.

“Was  _ that _ my gift?” Castiel asked, a faint smile on his lips, when at last he forced himself away so that they could both breathe properly again. It hadn’t been what he’d expected, and he was distantly aware that they shouldn’t try it again, but he couldn’t lie to himself. He had liked kissing Dean that way. He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against Dean’s. He could feel himself trembling, and he wasn’t certain if it was from fear of what they had done or exhilaration at the idea that they might do it again. It felt like the world had shifted, only he wasn't quite certain as to how.

Dean laughed breathlessly and shook his head, “I didn’t know I was going to do that. Not until I did.” He pulled his lower lip between his teeth, “You didn’t do anything to upset me earlier. You just... I wanted to tell you that I’ve been wanting to kiss you forever, now. I was just frightened. You looked so beautiful at the games, I thought my heart would stop. I didn't know what to do.” Dean leaned up and pressed another kiss against his lips. “You’re quaking,” he murmured as he passed his fingers through  Castiel’s curls. “Are you all right?”

“I’m…we shouldn’t,” he managed. It wasn't what he wanted to say. He wanted to kiss him again, and to tell him as much, but he thought he carried the responsibility of putting a stop to things before they got out of hand. He was older, and besides that, if they were discovered, Dean would be the one punished. “We shouldn’t change things. Not like this, Dean. I couldn’t bear it if you-”

Dean set his jaw, “You didn’t like it?” It sounded less like a question than an accusation.

Castiel let out a slow, shaky breath, “No. No, that’s not it. I did like it. Very much.” He could never lie to him, but he just wasn’t sure it was a precipice he was ready to let himself fall over. Not when the other side meant dire consequences for Dean. 

“Then I’m not afraid,” Dean whispered fiercely. “Whatever they might do, I’d take it gladly in exchange for more of this.” 

Castiel didn’t know what to say to that. Dean knew him better than anyone; he could practically read his thoughts. He didn’t understand how he could possibly find a way around this situation. How could he protect him physically without damaging his heart? How could he forgive himself if he gave in the way he desperately wanted to and then Dean was punished for it? 

“Here,” he sighed and tugged Castiel along by their still joined hands to the window, where he pushed aside the drape and produced a dark, gleaming spear.  “I know you don’t care for this sort of thing, but I wanted to make something for you. Something useful.”

Castiel swallowed back the lump that had formed in his throat. “It’s so beautiful,” he told him as his fingers slid along the polished wood of the shaft. “When did you have time to craft something like this?” He lifted it in his hand, tested its heft. It felt well-balanced, like it could be an extension of his own arm. Dean had outdone himself. 

“You spend more time than you think at your lessons. And...all I can do is think of you when you’re gone, so I made myself productive.” He wound his arms about Castiel’s waist, “There were many failed attempts before this one, but it needed to be perfect. What I made needed to be worthy of a god. Worthy of you. If, in a year, you will have to become a soldier, I won’t be allowed to go with you. They won’t let me follow you. I know this, though you refuse to think of it. Know that I would defy even the gods to stay at your side if it would not shame you. I don’t fear anything when I’m next to you. But if I can’t be near, then I want to still be of some use to you.” 

Castiel set the spear back against the wall and turned to wrap his arms around Dean again. It wasn’t that he refused to think of their inevitable separation, but rather that he simply didn’t like the thought. In the winter, they would celebrate his birthday, and then he would be expected to join the military for a number of years once spring came again, something Dean, being a foreign-born slave, would never be allowed to do. It had been on his mind more often than it hadn’t, but he hadn’t quite worked out a way around it yet, and so he’d had to sit with the thought that eventually they would be separated. Probably for a long time—months, if not years. If that happened, he didn’t know when he’d see Dean again, and he wasn’t prepared for what it would do to him. He cared for him more deeply than he did anyone else, and the thought of long nights without Dean’s warm body against his, or of days spent trying not to be resented by the men he was to fight alongside felt more impossible than slaying monsters or outwitting the gods. There hadn’t been a day that they hadn’t seen one another since they had become companions. When he woke in the morning, Dean’s was the first face he saw, and the last one before he closed his eyes at night. It didn’t seem fair that any of that should change just because he’d had the misfortune to be born the son of a god. It was miraculous that they should have ever found one another at all, and the thought of parting from him felt like blasphemy. 

“I will not give you up so easily,” Castiel told him. He drew back, and then, just so he could see him smile, he pulled a fig from the space behind Dean’s ear. 

It was a simple trick, but it worked. Dean shoved him playfully, then caught him by the wrist and took a bite of the fruit while Castiel still held it between his fingers. Juice and honey rolled thickly down his wrist, and in a move that was far more seductive than he had any right to be, Dean licked it clean. It made Castiel’s heart stutter in his chest. When had he grown so much? How had he failed to notice how simultaneously pleasurable and unbearable it was to be pinned under Dean’s gaze the way he was right then? He flushed and then put the rest of the fruit into his own mouth, which Dean chased with another kiss. 

Castiel didn’t fight him. It was far too pleasurable, and far too easy for him to keep Dean in his arms. Besides, even if he had wanted to, he doubted Dean would allow him to resist unless he told him he wasn’t interested in being with him this way at all. And as he had discovered that certainly wasn’t the way he felt, he didn’t think he had much of a chance of stopping any of it. He didn’t think he wanted to. 

They spent the rest of the late afternoon like that, joking and kissing, and sharing too-sweet, sticky figs between them. They nearly missed their evening meal altogether because they were blind, but for each other. The way Dean looked at him made him want to lay himself at his feet. How had he managed to keep himself composed for all these years? How had he not realized what had blossomed between them sooner? They could have been kissing like this all along. 

As they walked the halls, it occurred to Castiel that it had always been like this, simply more restrained. It felt so natural to be able to kiss Dean’s mouth rather than just his forehead or cheek. Not that he had ever thought too much about kissing him elsewhere before. The kisses they shared had always been easy and comfortable. He simply hadn’t known kissing Dean this new way would be something so worth doing. It was easy to admire Dean for his beauty, to see what it was in him that others always seemed to want, but Castiel had always managed to separate himself from any similar feelings. He loved him, and because he loved him, he never felt that he needed more than what they already shared. He certainly had never considered that Dean might think of him as anything more. Regardless of rumors or whispers from others, their relationship had always just existed between them—without definition, without conscious boundary—and he didn’t think either of them had ever questioned what that meant. It hadn’t mattered. He was happiest when he was with Dean, and that fact hadn’t changed at all. 

When they went down to eat, he wondered if anyone else noticed the subtle shift between them. Dutifully, Dean refrained from kissing or touching him unnecessarily, but they sat, pressed thigh to thigh the entire night, and while Dean spoke to the others in his usual animated style, Castiel sat quietly. He watched him, and he burned, but he didn’t make a single move that might be construed as romantic. In reality, despite the issues with legality, and in any other household, if Castiel felt the desire to carry on a romance with Dean, no one would have bothered about it. Most men carried on with other men for a time before they married, which would have been a long way off for Castiel—that wasn’t at all unusual. They were companions, and fondness between them was more than natural. But Castiel’s fear came from the fact that he knew, beyond a shadow of any doubt, that if his siblings or step-father discovered them, then they’d have Dean lashed within an inch of his life out of nothing more than spite. And they’d force Castiel to watch. The fear they had of his rage for teasing them about their supposed relationship would dissipate entirely in light of actual proof. They would be able to justify their cruelty, and that alone would be enough to quell any fear that prevented it otherwise. He couldn’t bear the thought, and he liked it even less when compounded with the nearing reality that he’d be expected to leave home, and by extension Dean, in less than a year. How would they treat him once he was gone? If they were discovered, he imagined life would grow unbearable for Dean on his own. He needed to protect him. 

He would figure it out. There was still a little time, and he planned to use it to devise a way to keep Dean with him.  While he might have been permitted to bring a slave of his own to war, he would probably not go directly to battle, and Dean technically still belonged to his step-father’s house. If he wished it, he could have sold Dean many times over by now. He imagined that either his mother’s quiet devotion or a healthy fear of the gods were the only things that held such an impulse at bay. He was not the type of man who would have ordinarily endured having the son of a man he had defeated keep company in his home. He barely acknowledged Dean on a good day, let alone showed any attachment to him. 

They kissed endlessly. Or it felt like it could have been endless to Castiel. He would have liked for it to have been that way. He hadn’t known before that he had been missing anything. Their friendly affections had always seemed more than enough for him, but now that he knew what it was like to feel Dean’s mouth against his—how delightful it was to feel the way his breath fanned over his lips when Dean giggled each time they parted—he wondered how many other things in life he had failed to take notice of—how he had managed to live without those feelings. And the tug in his groin he felt when Dean’s hands skated along every exposed inch of skin available to him wasn’t a feeling he minded either. It made him feel vaguely light-headed and tingly, and he had to turn Dean in his arms and embrace him from behind so that he could put a stop to things before the feeling overcame him. His face was flushed and his breath came in short, awkward bursts, but if Dean noticed, he let him keep his dignity by settling against him, and kissing Castiel’s knuckles instead.

Castiel had to work very hard not to recall the obscene way Dean had licked honey from his wrist and fingers only hours before. He imagined he’d be spending a lot more time trying not to think of Dean or his mouth when he was supposed to be thinking of other things. He’d had a hard enough time not thinking of him before he realized how much more there could be between them. It would be nearly impossible for him to stay focused now. 

When they finally climbed into bed, rather than kissing the tip of his nose, as was Dean’s usual way once he had pulled his finger down it’s bridge, he pressed their mouths together for what felt like the thousandth time. Castiel cupped Dean’s face with one hand and brushed his thumb over the freckles on his cheek. Dean looked as though the sun shone from his skin, even in the dark of their room, and Castiel thought he would not have minded forfeiting the actual sun in favor of seeing him like this for the rest of his life. They stared into one another’s eyes as they had always done, barely contained smiles on their faces. 

“Again,” Dean whispered, laughter edging his words.

“Again? I think I risk spoiling you if we keep on,” he teased. Really, Castiel was the one in danger of being spoiled. He didn’t think he’d be able to go another day for the rest of his life without these types of kisses from Dean. Kisses that weren’t given in jest. Kisses that meant something to both of them. Kisses that ran the risk of ruining them both in more than one way. 

Dean scrunched his nose and drew out the sound of his name on a breath so that it sounded almost desperate, “C _ as, please. _ ” It was promptly followed by a yawn, which caused Dean’s nose to scrunch endearingly before he regained himself and sighed. 

Castiel, unable to resist him in the slightest, obliged with two more short kisses—one to his forehead and one to his lips. “We should sleep at some point, you know,” he told him, though he fought the heaviness in his own lids just to avoid having to take his eyes from him, even to sleep. He loved seeing Dean like this.

“Then just once more,” Dean said, his lower lip caught between his teeth. “So I might remember it while I dream.”

Castiel rolled his eyes fondly, and showered his face with kisses, while Dean tried to stifle his laughter beneath him. The final kiss, he placed against his mouth, and Dean sighed contentedly against his lips, as he laced their fingers between their bodies before they parted.

"Will that sate you, ravenous beast?" Castiel teased gently. 

Dean grinned back at him, "For now, perhaps. But I'm sure my appetite will return." He leaned in and bit down lightly on the tip of Castiel's ear, before he soothed it first with his tongue, and then with a kiss, before he finally settled next to him again.

Though he knew Dean was only teasing him, Castiel felt the heat rise in his face, arousal, and shame at the ease with which it now came to him warring in the color on his cheeks.

Dean laughed at him, "Have I already defeated you? Will you be ready when I'm hungry again?" 

"Sleep," Castiel commanded, his face still flushed as he held fast to Dean's hand. He didn't want to let go, even at the risk of his dignity. 

Dean rolled his eyes, but smiled fondly at him without teasing him further. 

They stared at each other u ntil neithe r of them could keep their eyes open any longer and they finally fell asleep, their hands still joined between them, barely any space between their bodies. 

If Castiel had known then that it was to be their last night together, he would not have dared close his eyes. 

Dean was wrapped in his arms, their bodies sticky with the night’s heat, when Castiel felt the unmistakable updraft that always brought his father to him. When he opened his eyes, Hermes was leaning against the window, the spear Dean had crafted for Castiel between his finely-boned hands. 

“Greetings,” he said, amusement painted over his otherwise changeless features. 

Dean shifted in Castiel’s arms, and he pulled him a little closer, the desire to protect him overriding any urge he might have had to give Hermes the respect any other god would have demanded. He did not get to his feet, but stared at him as he lay there on his side behind Dean. 

“It would seem that you’ve grown quite a bit since last we met. Discovered earthly pleasures,” he cocked a brow in Dean’s direction. “I forget how quickly mortals can change. It’s probably the most fascinating thing about you.Though, I think perhaps you’ve been a little slow.” He ran his hand down the shaft of the spear and smirked, “I hear you did well at the games today. Did he reward you properly for your efforts? You both look quite comfortable, so I’ll assume he has.”

Castiel felt the heat rise in his face as he glanced briefly at the laurels he’d won. They’d worn them around their room, and then tossed them carelessly aside when Dean had pulled him into another passionate kiss. “We haven’t…” he started, as he tried to fight off his blush. “Why are you here? You never visit me like this. When I’m not alone.” He had no intention of disclosing to Hermes how pleasurable he had found it to spend the evening with his mouth pressed against Dean’s skin. Or how much he wished he could go on doing it forever. He had long since outgrown any desire to share his personal feelings with his father, even the ones that didn’t warm his blood the way Dean did. 

Hermes set the spear aside and crossed his arms over his chest, “Yes, well, this couldn’t really wait.” He lifted his brows, “I’ve come to take you away. You’ve dallied here long enough, and you’re needed elsewhere now. Gather your things and come along.” 

Castiel’s brows drew together, “Needed? For what purpose?” He had been afraid of waking Dean, but he sat up now, a spike of panic striking through him. “And I haven’t been ‘dallying,’ this is my home.”

Hermes managed to look exasperated, “For whatever purpose I give you, boy. You have a destiny, as all mortals do, and it’s time to play your part. Particularly if you want not to remain devoid of worth for the rest of your days. If you stay here any longer, your opportunity will pass, and Time will have his way with you. You will be forgotten. Is that what you want for yourself? I should think not.”

“Cas…” Dean shifted again, but this time opened his eyes, a sleepy smile on his face. For a brief moment, before he realized that something wasn’t quite right, he looked as though he might draw Castiel in for yet another kiss. If it would have allowed him to go back to sleep, Castiel would have given it freely, even with his father in the room. But they had known one another too long, and it didn’t take much for Dean to read the barely restrained terror in his eyes. He sat up too, his hands coming up to cup Castiel’s face, eyes searching it for an answer, before following his gaze to Hermes. 

It seemed to hit him in increments. First, the realization that they weren’t alone. Castiel was certain that if he hadn’t still been holding onto him, that Dean would have found his way to the other side of the room for fear of reprimand. Then the realization that Hermes was not mortal, his wild eyes and unearthly glow settling upon him as he stared at him. And finally, the more nuanced realization of who that god must be. Dean began to tremble, but to his credit, he did not take his eyes from him, and only bowed his head slightly in deference. 

It made Castiel all the more proud to have him at his side, and he squeezed him just a little to try and comfort him.

“You  _ are _ something,” Hermes said matter-of-factly, amusement present in his clear blue eyes. He pulled his hand down his chin as he looked Dean over. “One can’t accuse you of lacking in taste,” he told Castiel. 

Castiel’s frown deepened, and he tightened his grip on Dean possessively. Hermes did not have a particular reputation for bedding young men, but it wasn’t unheard of either. Castiel would sooner tear the flesh from his own body than give Dean up to him. “Speak, father. Tell me what it is you wish me to do.” 

“Don’t worry, I’ve not come to take him,” he sounded amused rather than offended by Castiel’s possessiveness. “Just you. Though I’d hide him if I were you. Aphrodite and Zeus can be insatiable when it comes to the attractive ones. And neither of them have ever been very good at hearing the word, ‘no.’ I prefer them clever or devout, but we all have our weaknesses,” he shrugged as though mortal lust was simply a burden all gods were forced to bear at one time or another. “Now, get your things, and stop wasting my time. A thief is needed. You are that thief. Come.” There was less patience in his voice than he had started with, and he made no effort to hide that he had no intention of being defied in this. 

“What? What are you saying?” This from Dean. He twisted around to look at Castiel for a moment before he whipped back around to Hermes, once he realized that Castiel had nothing more to add. “You can’t just take him! That’s not… he’s no thief. He’s never stolen a thing since I’ve known him. Not- not really. Not for anything more than a prank. You can’t mean to have him for that.”

“ _ Dean, _ ” Castiel warned. He did not trust his father for an instant, and he wanted to protect him from whatever wrath he might rain upon him if the inclination struck. He gripped Dean’s shoulder to keep him still, and so that he might have a chance of moving him if Hermes chose to lash out. 

Hermes narrowed his eyes, though the rest of his body did not move, “And do you intend to stop me, mortal? Do you think you could bend the will of a god? An Olympian? Stand between one and their son? He is a thief if that is what I deem him. Do you know anyone else quite so clever at making things disappear from one place and reappear in another? Is that not what a thief makes it his habit of doing? It seems he has already stolen your wits, else you would mind your tongue.”

Dean looked only mildly cowed before he squared his shoulders and clenched his jaw, “It has been done. I would defy you if it was for him. There is nothing I would not do if it was for him.” 

Castiel saw the way his father’s eyes lit up with divine wrath, and he leapt to his feet in front of Dean before he had the chance to do anything Castiel couldn’t forgive him for. “Tell me, father. What is it you wish me to do?” He spoke carefully and tried to keep the tremble from his voice. The potential of having Dean smote in front of him was more terrifying than anything Hermes had to say. “I was…under the impression…that is, my mother always said it was foretold that I would make a great king someday. That I might be worshiped as a god. I’m not certain how becoming a thief would aid that end.” 

Hermes looked amused again, though the wrath hadn’t quite died from his eyes. He stood up straight and walked slowly toward Castiel. It made him feel more naked than he already was, but he refused to allow him anywhere near Dean, and he stood his ground before him. If he wanted him, or wanted to destroy him, he’d have to go through Castiel first. 

“I don’t believe you were always this obstinate. It must be a side-effect of your choice of companion.” He cut his eyes over Castiel’s shoulder to Dean, and Castiel hoped that Dean had the sense to avert his gaze, though he somehow doubted it. After a moment, Hermes fixed his eyes on Castiel again, “Very well. You  _ will _ make a great king, as the prophecy foretold, provided you are on a very specific ship come sunrise. It will become clearer once you begin, as is the way with the Fates.” He waved his hand absently, “If you are not on this ship, then you will die with no one to remember you and no glory to your name. A rather unacceptable fate for a son of Hermes, I think. Make your choice, boy. Do you intend to languish here for the rest of your days? Do you think your mother and her husband would continue to tolerate your presence here if I let them know that you chose to thwart the Fates for this one?” His eyes flashed in Dean’s direction again. “Do you honestly think they would allow you to keep him?” 

Castiel stared at his father, his words as heavy as his mother’s hands had once been on his shoulders. He did not want this. He was not ready. He was meant to have more time. 

“I’ll go with you,” Dean said suddenly, and he grabbed Castiel’s arm as he got to his feet behind him. 

Castiel turned to face him and took Dean’s face between his hands. He knew what his father meant to say before the words ever left his mouth. 

“You most certainly will not. He must make his journey alone. You would only be in his way, and I would not make a thief of my son twice. Or at least not for such triviality. I could admire your loyalty, but you belong to this house—or have you forgotten your place again?” Hermes was not often needlessly cruel, and Castiel hated him for the cruelty in his words then. 

“Father,” he said sharply, his back still to Hermes, “I ask that you give me an hour. I’ll… I’ll join you then.” His heart was already cracked in two, and he did not fear speaking to him the way he did. Dean was anything but trivial, and he couldn’t tolerate his father speaking about him as though he didn’t matter. He had nothing else left to lose. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Dean, who now looked stricken, as though a frightened horse was barreling at him, and he had no idea how to move from its path. There wasn’t time to devise a new plan; he hadn’t even managed one for when he would have been forced to leave in the next year. Even if his mind wasn’t presently wracked with fear and grief, and had been working at its full capacity, anything he might have come up with would probably have been half-formed and destined to fail. If he wanted to protect Dean, he had to do as he was bid. 

Hermes sighed dramatically, “Very well. Not a moment more, Castiel.” There was an unnatural gust of wind, and then he was gone.

“You can’t go,” Dean said fiercely, “ Not when we’ve only just… take me with you, at least.” He sounded almost frantic. “I’ll help you. I swear I won’t disgrace you. It’s not the military. There are no laws to stop me.”

Castiel pressed a kiss to Dean’s forehead and then pressed his own against it, Dean’s face still between his hands. “You and I both know that the gods have laws of their own, Dean. And even if they didn’t, when we returned, we would both suffer for it. I will come back for you,” he told him. “Perhaps… perhaps it will not be such a long time that I’m gone. Hermes says I will make a great king. When I am such, you’ll want for nothing. I swear it.” 

“I want only you,” Dean said, his voice breaking. He wrapped his fingers around Castiel’s biceps and drew himself closer to him. “Prophecies… gods… none of it matters. They make toys of men and laugh when they break. I would make you my god,” he said again, his voice sincere and desperate, and only a breath from Castiel’s mouth. “I would worship at your altar every night and every morning. I would make a temple of my body for you, and you could rest between my thighs. I would make a sacrifice of my mouth for only you. I would belong to you alone. All of me. Just, please, don’t go. Or if you must, don’t leave me here. You said you would not give me up so easily, prove it now. ” He slid his arms around Castiel’s neck and kissed him then—slowly, at first, and then more deeply. He slipped his tongue into Castiel’s mouth as he dragged one of his hands down, along the length of his skin.

Castiel felt the same stirring in his groin he’d felt earlier, stronger, and more urgent than it had been before, and he was nearly panting by the time he collected himself enough to catch Dean’s hand before it found its mark and succeeded in ruining him. 

“Dean,” he breathed, short, sharp, and edged with desire laced pain. He wanted him desperately, and he would have given anything in the world to stay there with him and afford them the time they deserved to explore one another’s bodies so much more thoroughly. He wanted them to crawl back into bed and kiss until they exhausted themselves again. And then to wake, Dean’s lashes lit by Apollo’s golden light, as they kissed again, and let their hands see what, until now, their eyes had been too modest to acknowledge—that they were nearly men, and that they could willingly give to each other the things Castiel had always been terrified someone would take from Dean by force. 

“Take me with you,” Dean begged. “I would give myself to you every night. And I would be sure to show myself worthy of you.” He turned his face and kissed Castiel’s wrist tenderly, and in such a way that said he knew that his words would fall short of  their mark. “Tell me how to make you stay,” he whispered. 

“I will come back to you,” Castiel told him again.  He could hardly stand to say it, his voice low and rough with the effort of withstanding Dean’s plea. He had never faced a more formidable task. Nothing would ever be more difficult for him than denying Dean, because given half a chance, he would have given him everything. “But I cannot defy my father in this. He will have his way, even if he pretends to give me a choice. And I would not risk your safety to have you at my side. Even if I could protect you, if my step-father chose, he could have you lashed until you died for leaving his house. I will not risk that. I could not bear it,” his voice broke, and he squeezed his eyes shut as he steeled himself. “Here, you will be safe. I would have that before anything else.”

Dean took a deep, trembling breath, like he might inhale Castiel’s entire being, and then stepped away from him. “Then go. Be his thief. Find your glory. But do not expect me to wait for you forever. Do not,” he swallowed thickly, as though even the thought of what he was about to say pained him, “Do not expect me to wait at all.” His old obsitinance had returned, and for all the heartbreak on his face, there was a determined set to his shoulders. 

Castiel stared at him. He had never before seen someone look so much as though they wanted to cry as much as they wanted to fight. He wanted to take him in his arms, to go back to the kissing of earlier, to eventually spend nights with him where they learned to find pleasure in each other’s bodies. If he was simply going to the military, he imagined Dean would have had little trouble waiting. There would have been no guarantee that he would return, but he would not have been far, and he might visit. If there was no war, he would not have to fight. They could run away together and disappear if it came to it. But with the gods, there was no way to determine what the Fates held in store. There would be nowhere to hide that his father could not find them. Men had died, been transformed, taken captive, and tortured all at the whim of gods of every shape and size. He could not fault Dean for how he felt in this. 

It pained him to think of how easily Dean could find another if he chose it. If he tired of waiting, there would be no end to the men and women who would be willing to invite him to their beds. He was so unbearably beautiful, so terribly charming, and so kind and sensitive, it would take only a smile from him, and he could have nearly anyone he wanted. It made the fact that Castiel had no choice in this that much more devastating. Because he wasn’t a fool. And only a fool would have given Dean up willingly. 

“I will come for you,” he said hoarsely. He took a step toward him, and Dean moved back. It hurt more than he was prepared for, and he had to clench his teeth to stop tears from springing forth. He clenched his fist at his hip and reminded himself that he was the son of a god, though it did little to quell the ache that was building in his heart. “I… I will not ask that you wait for me if that is what you choose, but,” his nails bit into the flesh of his palm as he reminded himself not to be selfish. “If you have believed nothing else of me in all these years, please believe that. I will come for you.” Quickly then, and before he could weaken and beg for all that Dean had just promised him, he dressed, packed a few things, and then took Dean’s spear and the carving he had given him of Arete so many years ago, with him as he went. 

“He is quite beautiful,” Hermes said when, at last, Castiel joined him. “I cannot blame you for wanting to fall to him. Even I find him tempting, and really isn’t my taste. If he catches the attention of Zeus or any of the others, they’ll certainly quarrel over him. And men have met their ends for less. It happens so rarely, but I suppose even mortals can occasionally produce exquisite beauty, just as gods can produce monstrosities.”

Castiel whirled on him, and he knew by the nearly imperceptible shift in his father’s features that he must have looked almost as fierce as any true-born god, “Speak not of him to me again, father. If you do, I will abandon you and your quest. I will seek the patronage of any god who will have me, and I will defy you for the rest of my days.”

Hermes’s brows lifted slightly in the middle, “Very well. Come. You are to steal a trident, and to do so, you must find Bythos and Aphros. ” 

Had Castiel any other real choice, he would not have agreed to his father’s quest. He had never cared to become a god or a king, and his only solace in the idea was that when he completed his tasks, he would be able to return as a king great enough to fasten Dean to his side, and never let him go again. His mother would be pleased, his place in history assured, and he would have the only thing he had ever really desired for himself. Dean would be safe from anyone or anything that dared look his way. If he had been able to conceive of even a fraction of a plan at the time, he never would have left him, and he felt certain Hermes knew that, even if he feigned ignorance. He couldn’t imagine why else he would have come to him the way he did, if not to catch him off guard. 

They traveled through the night, and by morning, as Hermes had instructed, Castiel had boarded a ship, and made his place in the bowels of the thing. He had no desire to interact with anyone else on the vessel, and though fresh air and sunlight might have served him well, he could not banish the image of Dean’s heartbroken and determined face from his mind’s eye. Had he been inclined, he could have wept for the entire first week of the voyage, but he clung, instead, to his spear and to his sparrow, and steeled himself for the journey ahead.

Stealing from Poseidon would be an almost impossible feat. He was notoriously possessive and wrathful, and Castiel could see no manner in which stealing so much as a clam’s shell from him would end well. But at night, as he sailed on an unfamiliar ship to an unfamiliar stretch of the world, he’d close his eyes and find Dean smiling behind them. He would breathe deeply, remember the sweet smell of figs and honey, and steel his resolve. He’d managed to replace the image of Dean’s spurned face with a sweeter one after a while, and he clung to it with everything he had. It wasn’t difficult to conjure beautiful images of Dean—but he couldn’t stand the thought of losing them again, and so he tried very hard not to, and instead did his best to keep his mind blank during his waking hours. 

His father, as usual, flitted in and out, never spending more than an hour or so with him, before he disappeared again. This was particularly irritating, because he was certain that wherever it was that Hermes wanted him, he could have carried him there himself in a fraction of the time it would take him to arrive there by sea. Conversations, on the occasions he chose to show himself, were equally, if not more, frustrating. Half the time he had nothing useful to say, and when he did, it never seemed to be anything Castiel could decipher. He never spoke plainly about sensible things, and Castiel often ignored him entirely. He spoke to the ship rats, or when they met an untimely end, the ship’s cat, instead. He didn’t really like her, but she didn’t really like him either, and they shared grudging companionship, as neither of them had any other particular acquaintances aboard. 

They had been at sea for many weeks without incident, when they met with a sudden storm. Once he had tired of the ship’s belly, and the cat, and his own self-pity, Castiel had forced himself to try interacting with the other men on the ship. He missed Dean’s company so terribly that he thought he’d go mad with it, and the cat never said anything of any interest. The rats, at least, seemed to like gossip. Showing himself above deck had earned him a bit of respect, as he had insisted they show him how to row. He was a quick study, and he would take shifts when someone needed a break, or simply to give himself something to do. The physicality of it allowed him to empty his mind of how he missed his home and Dean, and allowed him to do something he had never excelled at before: socializing. The men liked to talk to pass the time, and Castiel was often drawn into their conversations whether he liked it or not. The sailors were superstitious, but it seemed that most of them couldn’t have cared less about his weird eyes, or his divine parentage. He supposed they made their assumptions, but he was never asked about anything too personal, and that was pleasing enough.

He wondered, for the first time, if his experiences growing up were due less to the fact that Hermes was his father and more to do with the fact that he had never left home, and so all anyone knew of him were the things they had been told since his birth. He hadn’t, and still didn’t control his own narrative, but here, it felt as though he almost had a choice in who he might become. The sailors valued hard work and good sense over status, and there were brief moments when Castiel felt he could have almost enjoyed himself. If not for the pang in his chest every time he thought of how much he’d like to recount one of their bawdy tales to Dean, or simply stand with him and watch the sea as they sailed, he might eventually have found a place for himself among them. 

And so it happened that he was above deck when the storm blew in, dark, and threatening, the waters rough and unforgiving as the wind picked up. Castiel had no idea how to handle the sudden shift, as the sea had been calm any time he had been at the oar, and he struggled to keep up with the others as they fought to keep the vessel afloat. 

Gennadios, a thickly muscled, boar of a man, whom he had been rowing for while he went to eat, returned and took over again, shouldering Castiel aside and shouting for him to brace himself. It didn’t take long for the rain and sea spray to soak through Castiel’s chiton, and as the waves grew and tossed the ship about, he scrambled below for his things, and shouted for his father’s aid. He had no real desire to invoke his assistance, but he patronized travelers, and as he was a traveler, and as he was there because Hermes had forced him into it, never mind the fact that he was his son, he thought he deserved an explanation, if not aid of some kind. 

Hermes did not come, and Castiel cursed him for all he was worth as he tied his small sack of things across his body, and gripped Dean’s spear in one hand before he staggered back toward the ship’s deck. It wasn’t until he was faced with a wave, probably three times as tall as the ship was long that he realized how senseless it had been to go after Dean’s spear—it would do nothing to save any of them—but he gripped it tightly and braced himself against the side of the ship. Something in him told him that he needed to keep up with it, as surely as he would need to swim if he was knocked overboard. Perhaps it was just that he needed to feel as though Dean was still somehow near to him, but even as the ship was tossed about, and Castiel found himself somehow beneath the waves, and far from the ship without ever realizing how he had gotten there, he clung to the spear, and fought against the sea. 

His lungs burned as he kicked for the surface of the water, but just as he breached it, and was able to take in a lungful of grey sea-air, he was overcome by the sea once again. He was pushed too far below the water’s surface to ever have hope of finding it again. Had he the breath in his lungs, he might have called for his father again, a last attempt at salvation, but then he thought that he’d rather die with Dean’s name on his tongue if that was to be his fate. As it was, he could call for neither of them, and even as he lost consciousness, he held Dean’s spear fast in his hand, and hoped that he would not be very upset with him for breaking his promise. 

Castiel awoke with a gasp, which immediately became coughing and spluttering, as he wretched salt water onto a cool stone floor. When his lungs cleared, and all that was left was a gritty stinging sensation in his throat, he took several deep breaths and tried to piece together what had happened to him. He remembered the ship and the storm, and the sea, kicking against the current, and Dean’s spear... he lifted his head from where he had been on all fours, and searched the space for not only his spear, but for any indication as to where he was. 

“Peace, boy. You are safe here.” A voice came from somewhere off to the side. It sounded less like a voice, and more like waves crashing against a craggy shore. 

Castiel sat up more fully, and realized that he was in some sort of cave. Where he sat, the stone was dry, but he realized it was a comparatively small portion of the space, and that the rest of the floor was covered by at least a foot of water. 

“We seldom see children of Hermes here. He likes to keep them to the land.” 

His eyes fell, at last, upon the figure from which the voice had come, and despite his surprise, he managed to maintain his composure. “Yes, well, I have a feeling I may be among the least favored of all my siblings. Mortal or otherwise,” he said dryly. 

There was the sound of rushing water, and it took Castiel a moment to realize it was the sound of the creature’s laughter. Though he appeared a man from the waist up—thick, broad shoulders and a full-beard—there were some strikingly inhuman features worth noting, the most significant being that from the waist down his body took the form of an aquatic horse. His brow, too, was unusual, in that it was crowned by lobster claws rather than hair of any kind. He shuffled forward, his fin-like hindquarters moving easily through the water behind him as he regarded Castiel carefully. 

“Ichthyocentaur,” Castiel stated bluntly. 

He inclined his head, “I am Bythos. My brother, Aphros, and I reside here and watch over these waters. You were nearly swallowed by the sea, Hermeides. Aphros carried you here. He should return soon enough.” 

Castiel scowled. “You may call me Castiel.” He didn’t feel much like the son of Hermes at the moment; his throat felt raw, and his skin was sticky with sea salt. “Bythos,” he said slowly, “...and Aphros.” He recalled his father’s words before he boarded the ship—that he was to find Aphros and Bythos—and here, they had found him. He felt like the punchline to a very unfunny joke. One which he was certain had Hermes laughing hysterically. He had known the ship was going to wreck, and he’d put him on it anyway. 

Castiel closed his eyes and grit his teeth against the sensation of bile rising in his throat. Had he drowned, what then? Would his father have bothered to save him? He wouldn’t have bet on it. He’d have risked being with Dean for nothing. 

Tears stung at the corners of his eyes, and he hoped the violent cough that followed as he tried to fight them off could be passed off as the after effects of regurgitated seawater. 

“Are you all right, Hermeides?”

“Castiel,” he said again, evenly, his voice slightly raspy. “Tell me, my spear-”

“Castiel, then. It’s a finely crafted weapon,” Bythos rumbled, and after a moment presented it to him. “You would do well to hang onto it.”

“I intend to,” he said, and he got to his feet before he took it back from Bythos. “Thank you.” He cleared his throat and squared his shoulders as he gripped Dean’s spear tight in one hand, “Let me ask, are you and your brother bound to Poseidon?”

“He may hold dominion over the seas, but our allegiance is to each other, and those who enter our care. Our will is our own. If we were to show any allegiance, it would be to the goddess Aphrodite, who we tended to upon her birth.” 

“Then allow me to ask for your aid,” Castiel said as he came to one knee in a show of respect. “I would not ask if I had any other option, but I do not think I do. My father sent me here, and I…” he hesitated, uncertain as to whether or not he should tell the truth. Even if Aphros and Bythos held no particular loyalties, they still might not be amenable to stealing from a god as powerful as Poseidon. No one would want him for an enemy. 

“You?” Bythos rumbled expectantly. 

Perhaps he could pass himself off as a thief, but he wasn’t sure he could add lying to his list and still manage to stay focused. His primary aim was to get back to Dean, and he supposed that honesty would do him well in the long run. Even if they chose not to help him, they could not say he had lied. And perhaps they really were neutral, and would not give him away either. “I am to steal Poseidon’s trident,” he said finally. “The gods have willed it.” This he said with a little less certainty, as he was still unclear on all of the details.

He saw the way Bythos’ crab claw brows lifted as he stroked his full, sea-foam colored beard. “I imagine Poseidon is not one of the gods you say willed it.” 

Castiel felt himself flush, but did not speak. 

Bythos stroked his beard again, “This is...quite the request, young one.” 

“I know,” Castiel said humbly, his eyes downcast. “As I said, I would not ask if I had any other choice.” 

“Might I ask to what end we would be undertaking such a pursuit? Poseidon is not to be idly trifled with.”

Castiel’s grip tightened around his spear and he took a deep, ragged breath, “I…my father…” It seemed a weak excuse to say, “because Hermes told me so,” particularly when imploring the help of creatures as old as the sea itself. He took another breath and met Bythos’ eyes, “I wish to return to my beloved.” His voice was calm as he spoke, “My father will not allow it until I complete this task for him, and I find myself here at great personal cost. I…” he faltered a moment as he recalled the defiant way Dean had looked at him, and how he had told him not to expect him to wait. “I do not pretend to know the minds of the gods, but I know my own heart. And it yearns to be reunited with his. Please, assist me in this. Poseidon will not learn of it, and you will have my allegiance. If your own allegiance would be to no god but that of Aphrodite, then...this is surely a cause of which even she would approve. For love is what compels me.” 

There was silence between them, and for several long and painful seconds, Castiel thought he would be rejected, or otherwise killed where he knelt. 

Bythos stroked a massive hand down his beard again, “I believe your words ring true. But I cannot make such a decision on my own, Castiel. Even if our Lady Aphrodite might approve,” he sounded amused as he spoke. “When Aphros returns, we will talk. And you will tell us what you know and what you need, and we will see what is to be done.” 

Castiel let out a relieved breath, and bit back the cough that wanted to follow. Perhaps he would see Dean again.

Time passed differently for immortals. Castiel knew this, and yet, when Bythos had said that his brother would return shortly, he had still supposed this meant that he’d be back in time for dinner. This was not the case. 

Weeks passed, so many that he lost count. He thought he’d go mad with the waiting. Any time Castiel asked about it, Bythos waved him off and told him to be patient. It made sense to him now how Hermes could drop in and out of his life at whim, as though nothing had changed, and be shocked to find he had grown half a foot in his absence. 

Not that he ever made himself known while Castiel was with Bythos. 

Castiel found a limited number of ways to stave off his growing impatience, though he found that the one thing he absolutely could not allow himself to do was dwell too long on the memory of Dean’s face. The peace he’d found in it on the ship had morphed into something sharp and barbed that only caused him pain when he reached out to touch it. He took his memories, tucked them away, and didn’t allow himself to so much as glance at them for fear of falling to pieces at the slightest provocation. If he had spent all of his nights reliving days he’d spent with Dean, or sweeter, and thus all the more painful, the night they had spent discovering their feelings for one another before Hermes had come for him, there would have been nothing to stop him giving the whole thing up and returning home in an instant. His father would probably have sent some horrible creature to swallow him whole, or dropped him into a never-ending labyrinth as punishment for defying him, but he’d have tried anyway. So he did not think of him, and he did not run from what Hermes promised him would assure his future. 

When Aphros finally made his appearance, as barrel-chested and bright-eyed as his brother, but perhaps with a more restless energy about him, Castiel was so sick of the dark and damp that he almost couldn’t bring himself to care. 

It took all he had to explain himself again, this time to both brothers, and he did not bother supplicating himself when asked for their assistance this time. It probably wasn’t wise, but he hardly cared, and when Bythos mentioned to Aphros the reason Castiel had initially given him—that a lover waited for him once his trial was complete—Castiel bit his tongue until he tasted blood, and averted his eyes. “ _ Lover,”  _ seemed a trite description. At any rate, he still refused to allow himself to speak or think of him, even when it seemed success was close at hand. 

In the end,  the brothers agreed to help him. There was a gate, hidden in the depths, over which Bythos held control, but which he apparently could not open without Aphros present as well. He explained that this gate led to a passage which could be taken to access Poseidon's throne room, where he kept his trident when he slept.

“If he catches you, Hermeides, he will kill you.” Aphros had not been able to be persuaded to call him by his first name. “You have taken on a fool’s errand in this. Poseidon will sense it the moment you leave the throne room, if not sooner.”

“Yes,” Castiel griped, as he straightened his sad excuse for a chiton and picked up his things, “You’ve told me. As we’ve established many times over at this point, my father thinks me a fool. Are you certain he will not come after you?”

“Nothing is ever certain,” Bythos rumbled. “But we have weathered much. Poseidon is the same.”

Castiel did not like the sound of this. He still wasn’t certain why they had chosen to help him at all, though they seemed to think his reluctance to complete the task at all, a worthy enough reason. “All right,” he said finally. “I’m ready.” 

“Then come, and we will show you the way.” 

Mortals were not meant to travel so far below the sea depths, and Castiel was certain that if not for his godhead, he’d have lost consciousness and drifted from Bythos’ back as they dived ever deeper. But even with the enchantments the brothers placed on him before they made their way down, Castiel struggled to make his body function with the ease he was used to.

“I wish you luck, Castiel,” Bythos said as he finally climbed down off of his back. “Perhaps we will meet again.”

“Perhaps I will not have to fish you from the sea the next time,” Aphros said.

Castiel thanked them again, and hoped for all of their sakes, that things did not go very badly for him once he found the trident. 

It wasn’t until the brothers had left him, and he was on his own again that Castiel realized he might have asked them to carry a message to Dean in the event that something happened to him. If they couldn’t reach him themselves, then perhaps they knew someone who could. Or perhaps not. Hermes was the messenger god, and he was nowhere in sight. Castiel would sooner walk barefoot over hot coals than ask any favors of him for as long as he lived. He closed his eyes and steeled himself. This, and then he would have Dean again. This, and he would no longer have to think of the prophecy that had dogged his every step since birth. 

_ He will make a great king and be worshiped as a god. _

If he had to be a thief first, then a thief he would be. 

Poseidon’s antechamber was longer than he’d imagined, though he’d asked Bythos and Aphros to describe it to him at length. In fact, everything seemed just slightly too large, and though Castiel wasn’t particularly slight, he felt that the objects in the room were too big to be of any use to him. The Ichthyocentaurs had been similarly large, but he had thought it was a product of their inhuman forms. Horses were large, so it stood to reason that they should be too. Possibly because Hermes always appeared to him with the proportions of an average man, albeit with divine grace in every limb, he hadn’t considered that Posiedon might also share in their giant proportions. 

It made him uneasy, and he gripped Dean’s spear more tightly as he made his way toward the entrance to the throne room. His movements still weren’t as easy as they should have been, but he felt better than he had when he had been traveling on Bythos’ back. 

As grand and over-sized as the antechamber had been, the throne room was almost twice as large, and several times more magnificent. It took Castiel a moment to orient himself enough to see that the trident was displayed in a hold next to an over-sized throne, crested in pearls and other sea-things. The throne itself was also adorned, and so the trident looked to be one with the throne, almost as though it was intended to be camouflaged there. 

Castiel surveyed the room one last time before checking that everything on his person was secure, and steeling himself once more. 

“Hermes,” he muttered, his old rage at being toyed with flaring, “if I die here, all of Olympus will not keep me from finding you.” With that, Castiel, as swift-footed as he could manage, approached the throne, set Dean’s spear aside, and with some effort, pulled the trident free. 

There was a moment where nothing happened. The seconds after the trident was in his hands seemed to be punctuated by a  _ lack _ of anything at all. No movement, no sound. Even his heart seemed to have hesitated in its rhythm as Castiel felt the weight of a godly weapon settle between his palms.

And then it started.

It began as a slight tremor, everything under and around him rumbling mildly and gradually becoming greater in force the longer he stood there. It took him only a moment to realize that he needed to go. He took up the trident and his spear each in a hand, and started—as near to a sprint as he could manage with such cargo—for the opposite end of the throne room. It took some effort for him to stay upright as the trembling of the room increased, never mind the extra heft of the trident, and he was only about halfway to the antechamber when he heard a voice, like the sound of waves crashing against rocks, roar at him to halt. 

Of course, he did no such thing.

The trembling increased, and Castiel realized, with a concerned glance over his shoulder, that the great figure that had appeared behind him, Poseidon, was now in pursuit. Though he walked, his stride covered almost twice what Castiel’s did even running, and he realized that he would be upon him before he could ever breathe real air again if he didn’t find a way to slow him down. The trident was too heavy for him to outrun him with, even without the disadvantage of carrying anything else in an unfamiliar territory. 

He stumbled, and nearly lost his grip on the trident, but he managed to steady himself with Dean’s spear. It was then that his body acted, almost without his consent.  _ I would make you my god _ , echoed in the chambers of his mind as he spun, hefted the spear, and let it fly toward Poseidon, with more strength and clarity than he had thought himself capable of since Bythos and Aphros had brought him there. It was in the moment that it left his hand that he realized a spear forged by a mere man would probably do very little against a god such as Poseidon.

The spear sailed forward, a perfect arc from his hand to Poseidon’s brow, where it pierced him right between the eyes.

Poseidon’s head snapped back, but his body stayed fully upright, his arms outstretched, which gave him an uncanny sort of posture that made Castiel’s hair stand on end. His eyes rolled back, during which time things were so quiet and still that Castiel was nearly startled by the contrast of it from the roaring that had echoed around the chamber walls as the sea god stalked after him. He waited a moment longer than he should have to begin running again, and he turned for the exit just as a great geyser sprayed forth from Poseidon’s brow, though he still seemed otherwise incapacitated. 

Castiel sprinted as fast as he could, which, although he no longer held Dean’s spear, was not as fast as he would have liked with the trident in hand. Although he made it to the end of the antechamber, the flood that had sprung forth from Poseidon’s brow caught him up and swept him forcibly out into the ocean’s current, where, though he had no breath left in his lungs, and barely any sense left in his head, he clung to the trident as though his life depended on it. 

Eventually, he lost track of himself and his consciousness as the sea swept him up and tossed him about for the second time since he had started on this errand of his father’s. If he ever saw him again, it would be all he could do not to try to kill him. 

When he next awoke, Castiel felt the rough texture of sand against his skin, but his head felt fuzzy, and his lungs felt full of sea water (again), and he was hardly in any fit state to move or protest when Poseidon's trident was plucked deftly from where it rested beneath his palm. When he tried to lift his head, his vision swam, and he was swallowed by the blackness of unconsciousness once again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. This chapter probably underwent the most change from the original because I had to add so much stuff to get it to where I wanted it within the story. There are a lot of added bits in this section. This section was also originally outlined as the "EROS" section of the story, but Cas and Dean are still pretty young here, and since I figured the "EROS," section would come with the expectation of steam, which I have no intention of writing with any real intensity between minors (even ancient Greek ones) I thought "LUDUS," fit better. I've decided that I can probably wrap things up in five chapters with the way things are going, so we'll get there. I'll probably do one chapter next month, and the last chapter the following month, as I'm currently recovering from major surgery (everything is fine!), and I've just been feeling slightly uninspired lately, plus the holidays are coming up, so I'm giving myself some wiggle room. I have an outline for things, but filling in the middle takes time and effort that I've been too tired to put forth, but knowing where I'm going is half the battle, so, like I said, we'll get there! Thanks for being patient with me, and for reading this far!


	4. EROS (Sexual Love)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We get the steam 😏

Dean smiled at him, the freckles over his nose stood out in the sun, and the green of his eyes seemed as endless as the wood around their home. He was propped on Castiel’s chest, his arms folded under his chin as he gazed up at him. Castiel had missed him so terribly since he’d been gone, missed these quiet moments in which they seemed to communicate without words. 

Castiel wanted, of course, to verbalize all of this anyway, because Dean deserved to hear it. He deserved to know how important he was to him, how he intended never to leave his side again. But when he opened his mouth to speak, Dean covered it with his hand, and then replaced his hand with his own mouth before Castiel had time to question him. 

And,  _ oh.  _ Oh. He had missed this too.  __

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He moved to wrap his arms around Dean, to pull him closer, but this, Dean stopped as well. He grabbed Castiel’s wrists and pinned them in the grass above his head as he continued to kiss him. Castiel hadn’t known how much he would like this, like having Dean above him, almost aggressive in his desire for him. They hadn’t been together like this long enough before they were parted for him to find out. But he did like it, and he wanted more, wanted to feel Dean against him, harder and without restraint, because they were here, and they were together, and Castiel never wanted anyone or anything else. He arched up, hoping for even the faintest contact between their bodies, because since Dean had begun kissing him, the only point of contact between them besides their mouths, was Dean’s hands on his wrists. The space between them didn’t lessen, and though Dean’s mouth was intoxicating enough on its own, Castiel could not content himself with just that. Not when they had been parted for so long. For once, he took advantage of his inhuman strength, and freed his wrists from Dean’s grasp so that he could pull him closer. 

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For an instant, less than an instant, Castiel felt like he was on fire. Everywhere Dean touched was its own inferno, until it wasn’t. Before he could register what it was like to feel the weight of him against his own body, Dean burst into salt water. 

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Castiel felt again like he was drowning, like he had when he’d been thrown from the ship or chased from Poseidon’s throne room, and he coughed and sputtered as he tried to catch his breath. 

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This was how he awoke, coughing, choking on brackish water, damp, and wracked with the grief of a lost fantasy. He wasn’t sure if his chest hurt more because he was water-logged or because his heart was breaking within it. 

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Once he was able to push past the initial wave of grief he felt upon waking, and could breathe normally again, he discovered that he was bound by the wrists, and that he was inside some kind of cave. He could hardly tell whether it was day or night, so dark was the space that he occupied. The stone beneath him was cold and hard, and he thought he had never been more physically uncomfortable in his life. His skin felt raw—chapped, scraped, and blistered—and his hair was matted, even more unkempt than it normally was. He wasn’t sure how  long it had been since he’d stolen the trident, or even what had happened to it, but he decided he didn’t care any longer. Wherever he was, he was nowhere near the sea, and wherever Hermes was, he didn’t seem to care that Castiel had nearly died several times over at this point, or that he had somehow become a prisoner to an unknown captor. 

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He wanted to go home. More than that, he wanted never to have left. The promise of fame, of kingship and glory, seemed paltry in the face of all he had already been through and all he had given up. It was just as well that he was stuck in a dark cave somewhere. He didn’t think he could have stood to look at himself if he had been among civilized people. 

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He knew he should probably do something, try to figure out where he was or how he had come to be there, but he didn’t. He didn’t bother to get up from where he lay on the floor, and instead let his exhaustion take hold of him while he silently wept himself back to sleep, the Dean-shaped crack in his heart—one which he had done very well to patch and ignore until now—widening so thoroughly th at he couldn’t stop the tears from pouring out. 

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The next time he awoke, it was to the smell of cooking meat. He wouldn’t have cared, would have preferred to continue to sleep and lose himself to his dreams, but his stomach betrayed him, and he forced himself to open his eyes as it growled. 

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As his eyes adjusted, he could make out a figure hunched over a fire just a few feet from him, thick pieces of meat on a spit over the flames. Castiel licked his chapped lips as he considered whether or not he should speak. 

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“You’re awake,” the figure spoke, it’s voice flat and emotionless. 

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He sighed and cleared his throat to speak, “Yes, I’m awake.” His own voice was raspy, and he cleared it again as he shifted to a sitting position. Although he had been sleeping for what had been, at the least hours, if not days, his exhaustion still felt bone deep. He shifted and lifted his bound wrists slightly. “Is there a reason for this? I won’t hurt you unless you give me cause, and I’m in no state to run.” 

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“I plan to sell you to the highest bidder.” Same even tone, and not even a glance in Castiel’s direction. “Cause enough?”

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Castiel’s brows drew together. It had never once dawned on him that he could ever find himself in such a situation. Even if his father hadn’t been a god, it would have been an almost laughable thought for someone to think they could sell him. His family was a noble one, and he had been born free—the odds of him ever becoming a slave seemed distant. Though, he remembered with a pang, that Dean had also once been free. A prince before he had been captured. Perhaps it was his fate to find himself in the same situation.

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He didn’t know what to say, and he watched for a little while as the figure turned the meat over the fire. His stomach growled again, and he pressed his hands against it to try to quell the noise and the emptiness he felt.

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A few moments later, the figure got up, and Castiel realized that he was large, much larger than any man he had ever known, and though he felt little in the way of fear, he still shifted back when he approached him, the meat held on a skewer in one hand. It wasn’t until he had gotten very close that Castiel realized that not only was it not an ordinary man that held him captive, but that his body was covered, rather grotesquely, in what seemed to be at least a hundred blinking eyes. They were set into his flesh, and all seemed to look in all directions, some of them rolling sightlessly, or closing, while others stared directly at him. 

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He squatted before Castiel and dropped one of the hunks of meat in front of him by sliding it off the skewer with his thumb. He stared at Castiel as he brought the other piece to his mouth and took a bite while it was still impaled. 

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Castiel watched him back, didn’t break eye contact as he gingerly reached for the food that had been dropped for him. It was hot and he nearly dropped it before he brought it to his mouth and tore into it. It didn’t matter that it burned his tongue, or that he couldn’t be sure exactly what it was that he was eating, but he didn’t want to miss the chance to eat when he wasn’t sure when it would come again. 

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He ate until his stomach cramped. He hadn’t eaten properly in so long, all while the giant watched. 

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“You’re well made, though worse for wear,” his captor said at last, and reached out to grab Castiel’s chin roughly as he turned his head from side to side. Had it not been for the unnerving number of eyes on his body, Castiel might have said the same of him. He had a strong, straight nose, and a heavy brow, but his features were even, and would not have been said to be wanting were he an ordinary man. 

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In any other circumstance, Castiel might have been mortified. There was grease on his chin, and he had never liked being touched without permission, never mind being unshaven, bound, and filthy. But as it was, he didn’t have the strength to fight against it, and it seemed pointless in his current position anyway. 

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“Open,” he instructed, and put pressure on Castiel’s jaw with his fingertips to indicate what he wanted. 

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Castiel’s heart was in his throat. He was in a vulnerable situation, and the idea that this man, this creature, covered in eyes, could take advantage of him was not far from his mind as he opened his mouth just enough to say he had done it. 

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Roughly, he was pulled forward, and while his heart hammered behind his ribcage, he suddenly found himself spluttering again as wine was poured down his throat. He coughed, and the grip on his jaw tightened, but the flow of wine paused for a moment as he recovered himself. It started again, a bit more slowly this time, and Castiel drank what he could until it was taken from him. 

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“What…” Castiel tried to keep himself level as grease and wine were wiped from his face with a rough thumb. “What are you called?” It was the unpredictability of this creature that made him nervous, the flat way he spoke, and the eyes that never seemed to stop moving, though his standard set stayed totally fixed on Castiel, hard and dark. If he could name him, then perhaps he could diminish his unease. 

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“Panoptes,” he said, as an eye on his shoulder blinked. He finally released Castiel’s chin, and tied his flask to his hip.

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“Panoptes,” Castiel repeated. It was an odd name, more like calling his father “Fleet- Footed,” than by his name. It was uncreative, but he supposed that given the eyes all over his body, it made sense. Besides, it wasn’t as though his own name was common, and so he didn’t feel he had room to judge. “It’s...nice to meet you. I’m Castiel.” 

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Panoptes snorted, “Do you say that to all your captors or am I special? I know who you are.” He got to his feet, and Castiel could see that several of the eyes on his thickly muscled calf seemed to be sleeping. 

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Castiel faltered. He was not as good with words as Dean, and he had never seemed able to say the right things when it mattered. If he spoke too much, he was likely to drive Panoptes to murder rather than slave trade. At the moment, he wasn’t sure which was worse.

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“Then,” he started carefully, as he reminded himself that if he was dead, he could not keep his promise to Dean, “You know who my father is.” This was a game he loathed. Invoking Hermes’ name, particularly when he felt so strongly in his present hatred for him, was not something he ever cared to do. “You know that selling me as a slave would never be tolerated.” 

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Panoptes laughed then, a deep, oddly pleasant sound that seemed to roll through the cave like fog, “Aye, I know. I also know that you stole from Poseidon. How much do you think he is willing to give in exchange for you? Will he outbid your father? And what of Zeus or Aphrodite or Apollo? Dionysus. None enjoy pleasures of the flesh so often as they, and I do not think any of them would mind so much having you.” He ran his hands down the pelt of fur he wore about his waist, “I may not be able to sell you to men, but I can sell you to gods with ease.”

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Castiel burned with shame. He was exhausted, and he estimated it had been months, at the least, since he had last set eyes on his home—it was difficult to tell exactly how much time he had passed in the company of Bythos and Aphros, but he had been at sea nearly a month before he’d met them. He had not thought his situation could worsen as it had. But even as broken and hopeless as he felt, as long as his heart still beat, he intended to honor the promise he’d made to Dean, though he refused to think on whether or not Dean still waited for him. His dreams might betray his heart, but while he was conscious, he didn’t want to think about the way they had parted. He would return to him, and they would make things right between them again. Surely. 

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“Do you not fear retribution, then? The wrath my father could rain upon you for this?” It was grasping. Hermes was not known, particularly, to have a taste for vengeance, and Castiel doubted anyway that he would champion him. He clearly had little regard for what had happened to him so far. 

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“The gods—your father especially—are amused most thoroughly when presented with a game. I will make a game of your imprisonment, and no harm will come to me. Besides that, I serve Hera and have her protection.” 

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Castiel fell silent. He could think of nothing more to say to that. Panoptes was right, of course. His father would not save him from this anymore than he had saved him from the sea. 

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“Sleep, now, Castiel,” Panoptes told him as he crossed back to the fire, his voice almost weary. It was the first sign of any emotion Castiel had found in him. “I cannot bring you to Olympus yet. And there is no point in worrying about it now.” He settled himself, and stoked the flames, “You should know that my eyes never sleep. If you try to run, I will see you, and there is nowhere here that I will not find you.” 

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The days passed slowly, like honey in the midst of winter. Panoptes would often leave the cave before Castiel awoke, and would return before the sun set in the evenings. Castiel would curl up near the embers of the fire for warmth—the weather having grown colder—and walk the length of the cave to stretch his legs and generate more heat when they had died completely. At first, he considered trying his luck by running while Panoptes was gone during the day. It seemed like it would be easy simply to slip out of the cave and disappear into what he soon realized was a forest. He had no clue how far he was from the sea. Even if Panoptes knew when and where Castiel had escaped to, there was no way he could be in two places at once, and Castiel figured that as long as he kept moving, he could stay ahead of him. If he could find his way out of the wood, then he thought he might escape without confrontation. 

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He had tried his strength on his bonds, but the rope must have been enchanted, because he could not break them no matter how he struggled. He was also still rather exhausted. Both mentally and physically, his father’s task had taken its toll, and being alone and unaware as to whether or not he had even succeeded in his assignment, not to mention the way he seemed unable to hold thoughts of Dean at bay any longer, was all too much for him at the moment. When he closed his eyes, he only ever saw visions of him, and while awake, the thoughts creeped in unbidden. When he first set eyes on the trees outside the cave, he was doubly struck by the way their color reminded him of mischievous eyes, and hours spent training or playing together in the olive grove. 

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However, it wasn’t as though Panoptes had been especially unkind to him (though he seemed to like to handle him roughly when it suited his mood), and had even provided him with furs to sleep under after he noticed his shivering, so he didn’t think it would be unwise to bide his time and gather his strength while he devised a plan for himself. Besides, he reasoned, it would be better to return to Dean well-fed and strong, than pathetic and weary. 

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In the evenings, they sometimes sat together around the fire—curiously easy conversation between them—though Castiel’s wrists remained bound. It reminded him of the way things had been on the ship, and he wondered, not for the first time, if this was what it was like to have more than just Dean as a friend. Of course, it was followed by the reminder that Panoptes was well aware of who he was, and kept him captive because of it. 

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“Who is Dean?” Panoptes asked one evening when Castiel had been particularly reserved. 

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It had gotten significantly colder in the last few days, and unfortunately, it was that particular afternoon that Panoptes had decided that Castiel needed to bathe. He’d taken him to a nearby river, which Castiel had been almost grateful for, as it had been the first real look he’d had at the territory since he’d arrived. He hadn’t, on the other hand, appreciated being forced into the freezing water on a length of rope, and expected to scrub himself under Panoptes’ watchful gaze. By the time they arrived back at the cave, he was the cleanest he’d been since he’d left home, but he was also freezing. He hadn’t felt particularly chatty after that, and had eaten his food in silence. 

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Castiel looked over at him, and he must have had a haunted look on his face, because Panoptes rolled several of his eyes before he spoke again. 

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“You speak his name. Sometimes, at night. I see much, but I haven’t the gift of Sight. I must know where to turn my eyes to know such things. I only wondered.” 

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Castiel pulled his fur pelt tighter about his shoulders and turned his face away from him. “He was... _ is  _ a friend.” 

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“A lover,” Panoptes mused. 

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Castiel flushed and ran his knuckles along the stubble on his chin, “We were more friends than lovers,” he admitted. “I was called away before we ever really…Well, I regret it more with each day that passes.” He pressed his palm against his mouth and shut his eyes. He could feel the ache in his chest where Dean should have been, and if he’d had the ability to go back in time, he thought he might have shaken himself until he saw sense and refused his father. “We were companions,” he told him, unable to stop himself. “Since childhood. My step-father brought him as a slave, and I took him as a companion. I’d never had a friend my age before that.” 

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“It’s lonely when you’re different,” Panoptes said. 

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“I wanted very much not to be,” Castiel said, and he finally opened his eyes again. He was startled to find that Panoptes had shifted closer to him, and was now within arm’s reach. He decided that it was probably because they had actually decided to talk, rather than sit in silence, and he continued on. “Dean was the only one who never seemed to mind. Never seemed to care who I was. I was foolish to have left him like I did. I left to fulfill a prophecy, and when I did, he told me that gods make toys of men and laugh when they break.” He cleared his throat, and shifted beneath his fur pelt, too aware of how sorry he must look, despite having cleaned up. 

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“I once thought the color of my eyes and that prophecy the bane of my existence, and hated my father for cursing me with them. It wasn't until Dean that I thought anyone might like my eyes or not mind if I never became who I was supposed to be.” He stared into the flames, and after a moment added, “But I suppose you might have felt similarly, at least about the eyes.” 

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Panoptes laughed, his low, pleasant laugh, and Castiel was warmed by having been the cause. He hadn’t spoken so openly about Dean to anyone before, let alone his insecurities, and in spite of himself, he felt a kinship with him.

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“My father,” Panoptes started as he pulled his hand through his dark hair, “Named me Argus. 'Bright One.' I know the weight of expectation too well. As I grew older, and when I gained Hera’s favor for deeds I had done, not because I wanted to, but because I knew I must for one reason or another, the name my father gave me fell away. People enjoy the stories they create more than truth.” He paused, and his voice was careful, almost brittle, as though he wasn’t sure he wanted to expose this part of himself, “I would not mind it very much if you called me Argus instead.” 

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Castiel, who was not used to being shown such vulnerability by anyone other than Dean, and who felt he could almost understand the man before him, reached out and rested his bound hands over the one Panoptes held nearest him. “Argus, then. It’s a good name,” he said kindly, and was not at all bothered by the way he could feel the lid of the eye beneath his hands flutter. "He must have loved you, your father."

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Panoptes sucked in a shuddering breath, and turned his gaze back to the fire, “It will snow tonight. I would not suggest you try to run.” 

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Castiel opened his mouth to retort, and was shocked when the rope was cut from his wrists. 

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It had been so long since his hands had been unbound that he didn't quite know what to do with them at first. Panoptes wasn't looking at him, and so Castiel rubbed the raw skin on his wrists with his hands for want of something to do with them. He searched for something to say before he settled on a question he had wondered about, but had been too afraid to ask. 

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"Why haven't you been able to take me to Olympus? What keeps you here? Surely...it would be better to be rid of me sooner rather than later." While he was grateful for the reprieve, he still wanted to gather as much information as he could on his situation. This was one of the last pieces of casual information he could glean. If it snowed, as Panoptes predicted, escaping wouldn't be easy, or even especially wise, particularly if there was something more dangerous barring his route. Perhaps he could make an escape while he was being transported, but he needed to know more. He had no weapon and no supplies. When he ran, it would have to be all or nothing, and he couldn't afford to fail. 

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Panoptes stoked the flames and sighed, "Because I'm not an Olympian, and only gods may enter Olympus unbidden." 

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"You're waiting for a summons, then?" Castiel's brows drew together, and he could feel Panoptes' eyes on him, though he still gazed into the fire. 

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He tilted his head, then shook it, "Not a summons, no. I'm permitted once a year for an audience with Hera. We will go then." He cleared his throat, “Besides, you were a disaster when I found you. And now that you’re clean, it’s only more evident that you’re too thin. The gods value health and beauty, and will give more for you if you are well. Waiting won’t hurt.” He seemed to close the subject with that, his voice regaining its usual flatness.

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Castiel saw no point in pressing further. Part of him doubted whether even Panoptes knew when he would be granted his audience. "Goodnight, Argus," he sighed. He curled up on his side next to the fire and tucked his head beneath his furs. Normally, he would have gone back to the corner to curl up, but the air felt colder, and if snow  _ was _ coming, then he didn't want to be any farther from the heat than he had to be. 

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Panoptes didn't respond, and instead got up and disappeared into the back of the cave. 

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When he woke, for a few lovely moments, Castiel thought he was home. He was more comfortable than he had been in ages, and there was a heavy, warm weight at his back.  _ Dean _ . He turned over lazily, intent on either kissing him awake or watching him until he woke on his own, and  _ then _ kissing him, which was why it was so shocking to realize that he wasn’t home; and that in the place where Dean should have been were more eyes than he was comfortable seeing so closely first thing in the morning. He startled, and put space between himself and Panoptes, who only just seemed to be rousing as well. 

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Castiel’s heart was thundering. Panoptes had never been around when he got up in the morning, and he looked down at his own wrists to see whether or not he had been bound again, as his mind began to process the fact that it had been Panoptes he had felt at his back, and Panoptes he had nearly kissed instead of Dean. 

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“Castiel,” he said groggily, and propped his face in one hand as he gazed at him with most of his eyes. “Are you...alright?” The question sounded strange coming from him. He’d never asked it before. 

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“You’re still here,” Castiel said as he began to collect his thoughts. He rubbed his hands absently over his wrists as he recollected their conversation from the night before. He didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t exactly sure what had occurred between them that resulted in their current situation. He didn’t remember inviting him to sleep next to him, and it wasn’t something they had ever done before. He was terrified that if he said the wrong thing, he’d end up bound again, and as it was the closest he’d come to freedom as of yet, he wasn’t keen on having that happen. Castiel considered the distance he had put between them before glancing over his shoulder at the dying fire. He cleared his throat and tried to imagine how Dean would have handled such a situation. Knowing him, he would have made a joke, and they would have laughed about it, the discomfort forgotten. Unfortunately, Castiel wasn’t Dean. “I…you startled me. That’s all.” He would not admit that for a moment, he had thought him Dean, and that he hadn’t minded the nearness of another body upon waking. 

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“You were shivering,” Panoptes stated plainly. “And crying out. I thought to soothe you, and fell asleep myself.” He sat up, and his dark hair fell over his shoulder. “When it snows like this, I don’t usually go out until midday when it’s warmer and brighter.” 

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Castiel averted his eyes, “Thank you. You...didn’t have to.” If that had been all, then there was nothing more to make of it. He got to his feet so that he could go to the mouth of the cave and see the snow. He could feel how cold it was before he ever made it there, and a small part of him wished he could crawl back into bed next to Panoptes and find warmth again. The snow was deep, easily above his knees, and he felt the sinking that came to him as he realized that escaping would not be something he would be able to do for quite some time. Even if he decided to risk it, he’d more than likely freeze to death before he ever found his way home.

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And so it went that Castiel whiled away the winter in the company of Argus Panoptes, unbound, but not free. At first, he feared that one wrong move would find him tied up again, but it never happened, and Panoptes never even threatened it. For all his gruffness, he seemed mild of temper for the most part. 

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Castiel let himself relax, and their conversations came easier again. Neither of them were skilled in the art of song, Castiel never having been very good, even after years of lessons, and Panoptes never having cause to learn, so there was little for them in the way of entertainment. While they were together, talking and eating were among the few amusements they shared in equally. Otherwise, Castiel passed his time in silence, and when he was left alone, or things had been quiet between them for too long, he retreated into his own mind. 

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“Where do you go?” Panoptes asked quietly one evening. They had taken to lying beside one another at night, particularly once the weather had grown so bitterly cold, that almost nothing helped ease the ache it caused in their bones. It had made Castiel uncomfortable at first, but he had since grown accustomed to it. Sometimes he would wake to find a many-eyed arm slung over his waist or across his chest, but apart from that, Panoptes never gave him reason to feel any more than mild discomfort at sharing a bed with someone else. It wasn’t like laying next to Dean, not as familiar or safe, but it was nice not to lay alone, and it was nice not to wake shivering in the night because there was no other body near his own to help trap the warmth. 

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Castiel lay on his back with his hands folded across his stomach as he stared at the inky black roof of the cave, the fire casting odd shadows around them. 

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“Home,” Castiel told him simply. 

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Silence fell between them again. 

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“Why did you leave? If you had a home, and a... _ friend _ . A prophecy does not seem worth it.”

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Castiel cut his eyes toward him for a moment and sighed. “I ask myself that constantly.” They had talked about many things since Panoptes had taken him captive, but Castiel generally refrained from talking too much about himself or his home. He could spare little stories about Dean now and again, but only because they brought him warmth in the telling. Afterward, he usually wanted to cry. Whenever he did share anything close to his heart, it was always at Panoptes prompting, which always came late in the night like this. It was as if something solid between them dissolved at night, and they could talk more candidly than they could when the sun was up or before they ate in the evening. 

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He wasn’t sure he could bear it tonight though. He felt melancholy and lonely, and he wondered whether Dean had celebrated either of their birthdays. He had no idea how long he’d been away, but based on the weather, he thought it must have been close to a year. It had been Spring when he’d left, and would be again soon. Rain came more often than snow now, relentless, and nearly as cold. His chest ached. “What do you intend to ask for in exchange for me?” he asked. It was a deflection, but he wasn’t in the mood to show his heart to Panoptes at the moment. 

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He was silent for so long that Castiel almost thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then finally, “It depends on what the gods are willing to give.”

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“And what if they refuse to give you anything at all?”

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He felt Panoptes shift next to him, “Why wouldn’t they? You’re not so dirty as you once were, and you no longer look a shade from death. An Oracle said you would be worth much to me.”

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Castiel rolled his eyes, “Because they are gods.”  _ They make toys of men, and laugh when they break.  _ He squeezed his eyes shut against the memory, “And because I’m worth almost nothing to my own father. That seems proof enough of my potential worth. You have been...kind to me, I’ll grant you. And so perhaps I don’t look so terrible as I might have, but I would not think the gods would want me.”  _ Not when someone like Dean exists _ , he thought to himself. He could think of no one more beautiful. “You are probably wasting your efforts.” Perhaps if he could make Panoptes see this, he could convince him to let him go. Or at least sell him to men rather than gods, though he wasn’t sure that would be better. If he thought his step-father would have paid to get him back, he might have tried that angle, but he knew better. The only person who might have done as much for him would have been Dean, and he had nothing to offer in the way of riches. By now, he might have little to offer even in the way of love. Castiel would not, and could not blame him if it was so. But Castiel felt he could escape from men far more easily than the gods, and if he could put himself nearer to home by that method, then he would do all in his power to keep himself among men. 

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If persuasion of this kind failed him, then he decided he must fight. He had spent too much time here already, and kind or not, Panoptes still kept him captive. If he waited until the weather cleared a bit more and then attacked him, then he might manage to escape. He’d have to be clever about it—Panoptes was nearly twice his size, and an experienced warrior—but he thought it was probably his only other option. Sneaking away couldn’t happen when Panoptes never really slept and could see all; he’d have to incapacitate him in some way first.

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He heard and felt Panoptes shift next to him again, and then, quite to his surprise, the gentle pressure of a kiss against his mouth. 

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The feeling, though startling, was also comforting, and so Castiel didn’t pull away from him immediately, like he thought he probably should have. It had been so long since he’d last been kissed in any place but his dreams—since he’d felt a loving touch at all—and Panoptes was surprisingly gentle with him, especially when compared to the rough way he had handled him at first. 

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“ _ I _ want you,” Panoptes murmured against his lips, his palm cupping Castiel’s face. “Whether or not the gods do.”

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Castiel was almost too stunned to speak. It was one thing for them to be friendly with one another. It was another thing entirely to think that Panoptes might have real feelings of any kind toward him. “Argus,” he managed finally. “How...I...you- you intend to sell me. Or trade me, or-” he felt Panoptes’ fingertips against his lips, just enough pressure to silence him.

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“I care for you,” he said, and his voice was soft and careful in a way that it hadn’t been before. “I don’t mean to but... Can we...for tonight, forget where we come from and who we are?” He brushed his thumb along Castiel’s cheek, “It may be too much to ask, but I’m asking. Perhaps, if we forgot for a while, we could both find some peace.”

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Castiel closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “You could force me,” he said, his voice nearly wavering. “It doesn’t matter what I say. Slaves, if that’s what you intend to make me, can be forced.”

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“You’re not a slave yet. And I don’t want to force you.” He smoothed his fingers along Castiel’s eyebrows, and brushed his hair away from his eyes. “I want to...I won’t force you. I know what it means to be compelled into something you have no taste for.” He moved his hand away from Castiel’s face and settled it on his abdomen. “Our fathers don’t measure our worth.”

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Castiel opened his eyes again, and they met Panoptes’ dark ones. Many of the other eyes on his body were half-lidded or closed, though only his standard set was directed at Castiel. His face looked softer in the firelight, and though he was nothing like Dean, there was something in the gentleness he found there that reminded him of him, and cracked Castiel’s heart right in two. 

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“Okay,” he whispered hoarsely. “Okay. Let’s forget. Just for tonight.”

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Panoptes kissed him again, and Castiel let himself go. 

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Being with Argus Panoptes was not like Castiel might have imagined. He was slow and almost wordless in all of his actions, as though he could memorize Castiel’s body through touch, as though touching him was something he’d wanted forever. For once, Castiel didn’t let himself think beyond anything except the feel of his hands, large and gentle on every part of him. Despite this, and despite the fact that he could hardly believe some of the sounds that came from his own mouth—sounds that Panoptes— _ Argus— _ encouraged when he clenched his teeth or bit his lip—he could feel everything he wasn’t thinking or saying or feeling building behind his ribcage. If he let it, it would burst out of him, but he buried it deep, and he let himself forget who he was and where he had come from. He let himself forget Dean. Because he was tired. So desperately tired, and whether man or monster, Panoptes was offering him something he had been deprived of for too long. The comfort and pleasure of touch, soft lips, rough hands, a warm, wet mouth, and the closeness of another body. When Panoptes took him first in his hand, and then later, in his mouth, Castiel thought he’d cry from the sheer relief of it. He didn’t though, and instead pushed that feeling down with the rest of them. 

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He could hardly recall falling asleep, or how many times they had brought each other to ecstasy, but he had. It was still dark when he opened his eyes again, and the fire had died down significantly, along with the rain. He was still covered in the evidence of the night they had spent together, having only been lazily wiped down before they fell asleep. One of Panoptes’ arms was slung across his waist, his massive palm splayed on Castiel’s sticky abdomen. The eyes on it were closed, and so Castiel lifted it and slid from beneath it. He’d realized that although Panoptes might be able to see all, when his eyes slept, the slumber was usually quite deep, and he rarely stirred. He assumed this was because there were always more eyes to do their watching for him, but it might just have been that seeing everything all the time was exhausting. He had no idea, and he’d never bothered to ask.

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He felt oddly clear-headed when he sat up, and the emotions that had threatened to burst from behind his ribs while he’d been in Panoptes’ arms, were buried so deeply that he might not have noticed them at all if he hadn’t known they were already there. It was strange to feel better when he had almost expected to wake and feel ashamed or disgusted by himself. He glanced over his shoulder at Panoptes, who for once, looked totally at peace. He looked younger like that, unguarded and almost innocent. The sight of him struck Castiel, and he turned around farther, to look at him more fully.

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Panoptes was sleeping. 

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The shock of it sent Castiel to his feet. Not a single one of his eyes that Castiel could see was open. Quietly, he walked around behind him, and squinted at his back and thighs. None of his eyes were open. Castiel’s own eyes widened at the realization, and his heart began to beat powerfully in his chest. He looked back toward the mouth of the cave before he stared back down at his captor.

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This was it. 

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Quickly, and as quietly as he could manage, Castiel found his clothes and then moved about the cave to scrape together some supplies. There wasn’t much, but he knew where Panoptes kept the knife he used to clean game, and the pelt he wore when he left during the day. When he had all that he could carry without too much difficulty, he started for the cave’s entrance, only pausing for a moment when Panoptes shifted, and sighed in his sleep. He couldn’t risk speaking, but he bent and softly kissed his cheek. 

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Panoptes had kept him prisoner, but there was a bond of sorts between them, and Castiel thought that in another life, they might have been dear friends. They were more alike than they were different, and if not for their circumstances he would never have left him alone after all that they had done. He felt almost guilty slipping out like this. It felt wrong to have someone expose the most vulnerable parts of themselves to you, and then leave them without a thought or a word. But he didn’t have a choice. In this life, Panoptes was his captor, and Castiel could not predict what might happen if he did not take advantage of this moment. He wanted to return home, and regardless of how Panoptes saw him now, he doubted whether he would have such a chance again. 

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When he stepped out of the cave, he pulled the pelt tighter around his shoulders and started on his way, first walking, so as not to make any excess noise, and then running as well as he could manage as the first rays of the sun began to spider their way across the horizon. He wanted to be as far away as possible when Panoptes woke. If he could see him, then it would be easy enough for him to take the most straightforward path to wherever he was and recapture Castiel. He had the benefit of knowing the territory, while all Castiel could do was to follow the river back to the sea, and hope that he could find a way to escape from there.

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More than cold, Castiel found himself hating the damp. He had ran for a long time, but the earth was not suited for it, and eventually, he had to settle on a brisk walk or risk injuring himself. He was covered in mud and slush, nearly up to his thighs, and if he hadn’t already been covered in the remnants of olive oil and come, then he might have been more disgusted by himself. He was grateful that there were no mirrors around for him to see himself in.

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His chief fear was that Panoptes would come after him. He kept to the trees as much as he could, and did his best to avoid any obviously open areas. He slept for only a few hours at a time, and only during the day when he could help it. It wasn’t until a full three days had passed that he allowed himself to relax at all. Either Panoptes was playing a long game, or he had decided not to pursue him. Either way, Castiel had no intention of worrying about him too much while he needed to be concerned about survival and finding his way back home.

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At some point, Castiel stopped bothering to keep track of the days. He ate little and slept less, and, he was so concerned with his own survival, that he ceased to dream, managing only to fall into a few hours of fitful sleep when he found a safe enough place. He was cold and miserable, but he was free. 

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When, at last, he finally reached the shoreline, he collapsed on the beach in utter relief. There had been times when he was almost sure he had been going in circles, and if not for the river he had been able to follow and keep to one side as he had gone, he doubted whether he’d have ever been able to find his way. Getting home still felt entirely out of reach, but he was determined, if nothing else, to see Dean again. There was still the matter of finding his way off the island, or finding his way to a town and convincing them that he wasn’t insane, but he was out of the forest, and he felt that perhaps that was at least half the battle. Returning to Dean would be a lot easier if he could remain free, rather than having to escape servitude or further imprisonment. 

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He wasn’t sure how long he lay in the sand, but he could hear whispers from whatever creatures skittered past him. He’d never had much cause to speak to sea things, and despite thinking that it might be useful now, he didn’t think he had the concentration for it. The sun eventually began to set, and he knew he would need to set himself up for the night, so he dragged himself to his feet, and found an outcropping of weathered stone to build a small encampment for himself.

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It was the first time he had dared build a fire in fear that Panoptes would spot the smoke or the flames and come for him. He was so close to the sea now that he thought he’d drown himself trying to escape rather than go back to being captive. The thought made him feel guilty. In fact, the longer the shadows got, the more his guilt and grief about everything he had done until that point grew as well.

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He’d left Dean behind.

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He’d lost his spear. The carving he’d given him of Arete. 

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He’d angered at least one god, and was now uncertain as to whether or not he’d been truly successful in stealing the trident. It could have ended up in Poseidon’s hands as quickly as he’d escaped for all he knew. 

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He’d been gone for too long, though he knew not exactly how long that was at this point.

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He’d been captured.

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He’d lain with Panoptes.

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Worse, still, he’d enjoyed it.

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Even if he made it home again, he didn’t know how he could face Dean after all of his transgressions. How could he return to him and ask him to take him back when he’d done him so wrongly? How could he have the audacity to hope that he would wait for him when he, himself, had given into carnal pleasures? He lowered his face to his hands and scrubbed them against his skin. He wasn’t worthy of Dean. He never had been. If he ever saw him again, he’d throw himself at his feet and beg forgiveness. He would not fault him if he refused to give it. 

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He was too weary to think more about it, and he eventually lowered himself onto the pelt he had stolen from Panoptes, and curled as close to the flames as he dared. When he woke, he would attempt to clean himself up, and walk along the beach until he came to civilization. 

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When, at last, Hermes decided to grace him with his presence, Castiel had been walking so long that he’d been forced to stop because his feet had started to bleed. Castiel’s first instinct when he set eyes on him was to strike him, and so he did. In his weakened state, it wasn’t a very strong blow, and i t was, perhaps, the least intelligent thing he could have done. As if he was so inclined, Hermes could have vanquished him on the spot, or shattered every bone in his hand. But neither of those things happened, and he simply turned into the force of the swing, and crossed his arms over his chest as Castiel recovered himself. 

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“I would not try that again,” he said evenly.

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“You have lied,” Castiel said, chest heaving. “You have taken me from all that I loved, and for what?” He spread his arms wide and gestured to the empty beach around him. His own body was littered with cuts and scrapes, and he was still filthy from head to toe. “How long has it been?” 

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Hermes tilted his head slightly to one side, his features changeless.

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“Tell me,” Castiel said as evenly as he could manage. “How long has it been since I left  home. Do you even know?” he wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d had no idea.

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“Is that the question you really mean to ask, boy?”

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“Tell me!” Castiel tried to keep the desperation from his voice, but he didn’t think he had succeeded. 

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Hermes glanced skyward for a moment, but didn’t move otherwise. “Over two years, I think. Perhaps closer to three. You spent quite a long time with Aphros and Bythos.”

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Castiel felt as though he had been punched in the gut, and he staggered back a step in his shock. Three years. Three years since he’d left home. Three years since he’d left Dean. And yet, he had nothing to show for it. A year. He’d thought he’d been gone a year, maybe a little more. And here, Hermes was telling him it had been nearly triple that. His despair, had it not been for his absolute fury, would have been enough to drown him. His fury was what he clung to, and he let it sustain him to keep from succumbing to his anguish.

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“I see no kingdom,” he started, his voice sounding as though it had been dragged across the sand. “I know not what became of the trident. Poseidon must have it back by now. I have been imprisoned. Only good fortune would see me freed now.” He felt a twinge of shame pass through him—not for what he had done with Argus Panoptes, but for how it had allowed him to betray Dean. For how it had allowed him to forget, even for a few moments. “Without your help, I have stumbled here, to this desolate place, so far from home, and with nothing to show for my efforts.” His chest heaved, “I will never forgive you this. Do not call on me again, for I will not come.” 

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“You’ve grown dramatic in my absence,” Hermes drawled. “Perhaps we should find a place for you on the stage. You did as you were meant to do. And do you have helped make a great king with your efforts. I see no reason you should feel so slighted.”

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Castiel did not move. His entire being went still as he took in his father’s words. 

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Of course. 

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_ Of course _ . Prophecies were never so straightforward. How could he have been so blind? He felt foolish, and the despair, which his fury had held at bay, began to wash over him once again. 

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“Who?” he rasped. “Tell me who it is that I betrayed my own happiness for.” 

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“The stage,” Hermes said again, with a flourish of his hand to make his point. He sighed, perhaps the most mortal thing he had done since he appeared. “If you must know, the boy is called Samuel. He will take more than his share of the world in coming years, but he needed the trident in order to begin. He had to trade it back to Poseidon in order to take his army across the sea. So, you are correct, the trident is again in Poseidon’s possession. The boy, Samuel, has gained Athena’s favor, and the plan was hers. One must applaud her stratagem. She has made her moves very precisely.” 

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Castiel did not speak. Could not speak for his grief. He did not expect to find Dean waiting for him when he returned, if he ever returned. Years had passed already, and Castiel could still taste the bitterness in Dean’s promise not to wait. 

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“The boy-king is quite grateful for the help,” Hermes continued. “He would, apparently, like to meet you. I think it a product of his youth, but he wants to thank you himself, or so I’ve been told. But that aside, you might use it to your advantage. Perhaps, you could ask a favor of him. Perhaps, he could aid you in retrieving your…  _ happiness _ .” 

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Castiel felt hollowed out. He could barely bring himself to form a response. “He will not be there when I return, and I cannot face him as I am,” he said, his throat tight. 

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“Suit yourself. But I’ll grant you, he will not be there when you return. He was sold to a brothel not long after you left.” 

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Castiel hit his knees, doubled over onto all fours. He could hardly bear the thought of Dean—always lovely and golden in his memory—in such a place, and he had to clench his teeth to keep from vomiting the limited contents of his stomach into the sand. “Why did you not tell me?” he managed, unsure whether his greater emotion was grief or rage. How long was “not long?” Had he still been at sea when Dean was sold? He fought back a fresh wave of nausea. 

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“Because you would have gone back for him. And because you told me not to speak of him. I merely respected your wish.” 

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Castiel could hear the taunt in Hermes’ voice, and he felt his rage double within him so that he almost could not contain it. 

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“I would not,” Hermes said again in warning, as if he could read Castiel’s thoughts. He walked a slow circle around Castiel, who felt as though his skin would split if he didn’t do something to rid himself of his feelings. Grief and rage were not emotions that Castiel had learned to master—at least not at once—and trying to do so now, while he was so exhausted, was almost too much.

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“Despite your con stant ingratitude at all things, Castiel, I am not so poor a father as to let you suffer endlessly. Perhaps what I say next will allow you to feel gratitude toward me at last.” He crouched so that they were at eye level, and his youthful face held such amusement, that Castiel knew with absolute certainty that the words Dean had spoken to him about the gods had been correct. They made toys out of men. 

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“I thought it a waste for someone so in possession of my son’s wits to be passed around in such a filthy place, and so I went to him and granted him a mercy.” 

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Castiel’s eyes widened, dread and terror rushing up inside of him.

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“Peace, Castiel. He lives. No need to look so haunted. I helped him to a temple of Apollo, where he serves him. He is, after all, patron of fugitives and refugees. And he has never quite been able to deny himself the pleasure of great beauty. He cannot be touched so long as he stays under Apollo’s protection.” Hermes pointed to the horizon, “He is there, the young King Samuel just North of that. There is a port town a day’s journey from here. Do not mistake my lack of interference for callousness. There is no glory in doing for you what you would do yourself. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m meant to fetch a heifer.” 

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And with that he was gone again.

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Castiel curled into himself and wept. 

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Eventually, he came upon the small village Hermes had spoken of, and from there, he was able to gather himself and find passage in the direction of the temple of Apollo where Hermes said Dean now resided. In the weeks that passed, he slept little and ate less, though, he had managed to bathe properly and shave. His apprehension was so great that he often found himself terrified at the prospect of meeting Dean again. He could hardly imagine that Dean would want anything to do with him. Would he curse him? Spit at him for leaving him alone for so long? For leaving him to be sold? These fears would chase round and round in his head, as he envisioned yet more horrible reunions between them. 

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Instead of dwelling in his thoughts, he tried to spend his nights devising ways that an end would be put to all of this. If Dean left the temple, he would still not be free, as at any point, his master from the brothel, or even Castiel’s step-father, could come to claim him. So they would need to go North, to the king that would owe Castiel a favor for having aided in his ascension. There, perhaps, he could ask for asylum, and they could live peacefully together. That was if Dean would have him. If the god Apollo would give him up. He clenched his teeth and tried not to think of the many ways in which Apollo might entice him to stay. He’d stolen a trident, and escaped capture, but he was no match for a god. Particularly not one as revered for his charm and beauty as Apollo. He had nothing to give now—returning home was out of the question while Dean could be taken from him and enslaved so easily. He wondered why his mother had allowed it. King Samuel, whether a boy or a man, was their best option for now. He only hoped he could convince Dean to come with him.

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He made his way on the rest of his journey by performing tricks as entertainment, or by winning bets with men who thought less of him than they did themselves, and still it took nearly another six months for him to reach the temple. This passed much more slowly than the time had when he’d been shuffled between gods and monsters, as he was among men again, and could count the days. If he spoke outside of what was absolutely necessary for him to get by, it was usually to some small animal, which only made people avoid him more than they usually did. He had forgotten, after so long among immortals, that people were wary of his looks, even when he didn’t look as though he had crawled out of some pit. 

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When, at last, he found the temple, it’s shining beauty made him uncertain as to whether or not he would be allowed to enter at all when he approached. He had taken care to wash himself and shave before he arrived, but he felt small before it, and the shame he had carried for having left Dean alone so long seemed to triple in size. He had come so far, and traveled so long, and still, he trembled at the thought of having to face him. He stood silently for a long time—minutes, hours—he wasn’t terribly sure, before he finally convinced himself that he owed Dean this. After all he had done, the least he could do was to beg, if not his forgiveness, then his understanding, his grace and mercy. 

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He approached the temple stairs, and his breath caught in his chest as he set eyes on the lithe form stretched along the top of the steps. He was bathed in golden light from the sun, and his eyes were closed. He looked as though he could have been Apollo himself, and perhaps a stranger would have thought as much. But Castiel knew better. He’d know the jut of his chin, his delicate nose, and the curve of his cheek, even in his sleep. He had grown more beautiful in his absence, though it was clear he had filled out quite a bit, the muscle in his thigh where his chiton had ridden up, stood out powerfully beneath his golden, freckled skin. 

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Castiel’s whole being ached at the very sight of him, and he nearly turned around and left. He didn’t deserve him. He was meant for the gods, and Castiel felt he had no right to want him as he did in that moment. Not after all he’d done. 

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But he remembered his promise. He steeled himself, approached, and stood over him so that he blocked the sun. “Hello, Dean,” he said, his voice sounding foriegn to his own ears as he spoke Dean’s native tongue to him.

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Dean’s eyes snapped open and he reached for the dagger that had been laying at his hip as he sat bolt upright. 

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Castiel held up his hands to show that he meant him no harm and took a step back. 

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After what felt like an eternity, Dean lowered his weapon. “Cas?” he said, and his voice was uncertain, as though he thought he was a spectre. 

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“I’m sorry,” Castiel said. He had turned many first words over in his head since he’d left that island, but none seemed so right as those. “I do not… I cannot expect your forgiveness after being gone for so long, but I beg you to allow me to try to repent.” He got to his knees before him and pressed his forehead to the step. “I promised I would return for you, and so I have. But know-” his voice cracked as he fought back a fresh wave of grief, “Know that I would have come sooner had I been able.” He’d missed him more than he had words to express. 

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“I was sold,” Dean said. 

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And Castiel didn’t know why, but he hadn’t expected those words. They felt like a slap, though one he probably deserved. He flinched, but did not move otherwise.

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“Your brother tried to force himself on me after you had been gone only a few months. I refused him, and he grew vindictive.” 

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Castiel clenched his fists as he listened to the bitterness in Dean’s voice. He would wring the life from his brother’s neck if he were to ever set eyes on him again. 

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“Amara warned me of what they intended for me, and so I was able to prepare. She protected me, even then.”

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Castiel didn’t have to try hard to hear the implication.  _ Amara was there, where were you when I needed you? _ He wanted to gut himself. He wanted to raze the world to the ground and then burn himself alive too. What had he done?

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“Hermes led me here when I ran from that place. I begged him to take me to you. He refused me.”

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Castiel stayed silent. There was nothing he could say. He knew what his father had done. He knew how he, himself, had failed Dean. 

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“Apollo has treated me well. Has protected me here. He wishes to make me immortal. To keep me for himself. I have belonged to him all this time, so it would not be so different to be his for eternity. He is not so cruel, and he says I amuse him.” 

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Castiel felt himself tense. This was what he feared he would find. If Apollo had taken him for a lover—and why wouldn’t he—then what reason would Dean have to leave? To be favored by Apollo was the highest of honors. 

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He had no right to ask for Dean to take him back. “What do you wish?” Castiel asked, his eyes shut. He could leave only if he heard Dean tell him to do so. He would not be able to go on otherwise. He would most likely not be able to go on once he did, but at least this way, there would be an end to it. His hope would finally be extinguished, and he would be assured of Dean’s continued safety and prosperity. 

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Castiel felt Dean shift closer, opened his eyes as Dean knelt before him and lifted his chin in his hand. They were as close as breath, and Dean stared into his eyes for a long time before he spoke again. “I would,” he said carefully, “Make a thief of you.” He ran his finger down the length of Castiel’s nose, and hesitantly leaned in and pressed a kiss against his mouth. 

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Castiel felt something break apart inside his chest, and he seized Dean’s face between his hands. He was sure Apollo could see them, wherever he was, and he hoped he did. He hoped he came and tried to stop them. Castiel would tear him in two. 

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“I would steal you from Hades himself,” he whispered as tears collected in the corners of his eyes. “From anyone who dared try to keep you from me.” 

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“Then do it,” Dean said, his voice a challenge as he moved to kiss him again. “Steal me away, and I will go wherever you bid me, so long as it’s with you. Do not ask me to part from you again.”

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Castiel eventually got to his feet, his arms wrapped firmly around Dean’s waist. Dean was taller than him now, and it made him ache for the years they’d lost together. “I- I am not a king,” he admitted, faltering at the realization that he had failed even in this, and that Dean might think differently if he knew the truth. “The prophecy was… not as my mother thought.”

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Dean cradled his face with one hand and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Then I will make you a god instead. My god,” he whispered, and followed it up with a more heated kiss, as his fingers tangled in Castiel’s hair. He tugged Castiel’s head back and pulled his teeth along the skin of his neck, “Take me from here, and I will show you many times over how it feels to be a god of mine.”

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Castiel felt himself grow weak at Dean’s touch, and he wondered, not for the first time, if there wasn’t something truly divine within him. No man should ever hold such sway over another without some divine agency.

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Castiel pressed his fingertips against the space over Dean’s heart, “I will. But we must visit the one who I helped make a king. My father tells me he is North of here, and because of my thievery, he sits where he does, and his kingdom will grow. He owes me a favor, and I will ask him to grant us asylum so that we may never be parted again.” 

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Dean took the hand Castiel had pressed against his chest and interlaced their fingers, “I will not risk losing you a second time. If that is where we must go, then we will do it, but not before I have you. I have thought of nothing else since that night your father took you from me, and I will do nothing else until I do.”

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Castiel felt himself go red, but the look in Dean’s eyes was determined, “I don’t believe Apollo would-”

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“My only god is you,” Dean whispered, his free hand sliding beneath Castiel’s chiton as he leaned in for another kiss. “Apollo will understand. These are my terms if you are to be deified.” He pressed a kiss below Castiel’s ear, “Let me worship at your altar.” He shifted his hand beneath Castiel’s chiton, his intentions unsubtle, “Make my body your temple, and  _ live _ between my thighs.” His fist tightened in Castiel’s hair, and there wasn’t even space for breath between them now, “My mouth, my heart, my soul, I’ll sacrifice them all, and they’ll belong to you.” He pressed their mouths together again, a promise sealed. 

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Castiel felt himself grow dizzy with Dean’s words, with the idea of being made his every night for the rest of his life. As he pressed himself against him, desperate to make his home in Dean’s body, the words of prophecy flitted across his mind.

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_ He will make a great king, and be worshipped as a god. _

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Dean’s tongue slid between his lips, and Castiel gripped him more tightly, both to keep himself upright, and because he couldn’t bear the thought of letting him go again. His mere touch was almost overwhelming, but Castiel refused to let himself break because of it. When they parted again, their mouths swollen and slick, he pressed his forehead against the crook of Dean’s neck. 

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“I missed you. More than you know,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry. I-”

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“Shhh,” Dean soothed. “We’ll speak later. For now, come. Let me do as I have promised. Please.”

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And because Castiel didn’t think he could ever deny him another thing for as long as he lived, he let himself be led by the hand around to the backside of the temple, and into a small room. 

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Castiel knew these spaces were generally used for priests and in ceremonies, but it looked as though it had been furnished specifically for the purpose of housing Dean. There was a pallet made of thick cushions and heavy drapes, as well as a wash basin and a low table littered with tools Castiel remembered Dean using for carving. There was a changing screen, and small jugs of olive oil and wine, as well as baskets of figs, olives, and dates. He took all this in as Dean tugged him along to the pallet of cushions, and then stopped there to kiss him again.

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As they kissed, he tugged at Castiel’s chiton until he had liberated him from the fabric. He stepped back to look at him, and Castiel felt the most exposed he had ever before in his life. Dean’s fingers ghosted along old scars that hadn’t been there when Castiel had left him, along his ribs, which had also been less prominent the last time they had seen one another, and finally, down the length of his cock. He cradled it in his palm, and Castiel felt the heat rise in his own face. This was not something they had ever done with one another, and while he had dreamed it a thousand, thousand times, having it in the waking world, was far beyond his expectation. 

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Dean moved his fingers gently, a soft rocking motion, as though he was reluctant to break contact with him even for a moment. Castiel exhaled, short and sharp, and Dean chuckled—a deep sound that Castiel had no recollection of him possessing when they had been younger. It sent shivers down his spine, and his muscles tensed as he resisted the urge to rock against Dean’s palm, to increase the friction he felt. He wanted Dean to grip him tightly and stroke, but he knew he owed him this, the chance to do as he pleased for the moment. 

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“I’ve wanted you for so long,” Dean said as he took his hand back and began to remove his own chiton. “The longer you were gone, the more I wanted you. I tried very hard not to feel that way.” The fabric pooled at his ankles, and he stepped over it, closer to Castiel. “I tried to remind myself that your family ruined mine. That I had always been a foreigner. That I  _ belonged _ to you as property. I wanted to forget you. I wanted you to feel as I had the night you left.”

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Castiel stared at him, and opened his mouth to speak, to tell him he was sorry again, that he had never once thought of Dean as property, that leaving him had been the only thing in his life that he ever regretted. 

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Dean pressed a finger against Castiel’s lips to silence him before he had the chance. “It didn’t work,” he said softly. “Because deep down I knew,” he stepped forward so that their bodies were pressed to one another, “I knew that the only thing I’d ever wanted was to show you how you didn’t need to travel or fight to be worshipped or loved. That I would give myself to you entirely, if only you’d let me. You have always been a god to me. Beautiful. Perfect. Sometimes an ass.” He smirked and moved his hand to press against Castiel’s heart. “And I promised myself that if I ever saw you again, I’d never let you forget, never let you question even for a second, what you are. I’d worship you enough for the entire world. I’d  _ make  _ you feel my love, my devotion.”

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Castiel’s heart pounded wildly behind his ribs, and he wondered how it was that Dean could say any of this with such surety. If he tried anything similar, he wasn’t sure he would have been able to get the first words out. Dean kissed him softly, then. And while Castiel was still processing how good it felt to have him so close to him again, Dean had gotten to his knees and taken him in his mouth. 

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Castiel gasped—thought he’d pass out from the suddenness of the sensation—his dreams had always ended before he was allowed this. He curled his fingers into Dean’s hair to keep himself standing, and swore softly as Dean pulled away from him to run his tongue along the skin at the crease of his thigh. Dean’s fingertips against his hip felt molten, and while he knew exactly where his other hand was, because he could  _ see _ it— could see how Dean held him still by the base so that he could suck him more easily, could see how he twisted his wrist and let his fingers trail along the underside of his cock—he was having trouble differentiating whether it was Dean’s hands or his mouth that was making him feel like he was going to dissolve like parchment in a flame at any second.

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“Dean,” he begged, and tightened his fingers against his scalp. “Dean, please. If you-” Castiel made a slightly strangled noise as Dean swallowed around him, and he fought to keep himself from completely coming apart. Dean seemed to find satisfaction in the sound though, and he pulled off of him, grinning, as he wiped his chin with the back of his hand. 

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Castiel felt dizzy. 

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“Don’t worry,” Dean said, his voice husky, as he rose to his feet again. “I won’t let you finish so soon.” 

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Castiel thought that if they weren’t careful, neither of them would have very much of a say in how quickly he finished. His body had been desperate for Dean’s touch—for  _ years— _ and now that he had it, he didn’t think it would take much to send him careening over the edge of their desire. 

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Dean wrapped his arms around Castiel’s neck, and hugged him close, “You were gone so long,” he whispered.

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Castiel could hear the pain in his voice, and he held him tighter. “I know. I’m sorry. I’ll not leave you again.”

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“Swear it,” Dean commanded, and he guided one of Castiel’s hands between them, and wrapped it around his own arousal. He kept his free hand curled at the base of Castiel’s neck. “Swear to me,” he panted softly as he guided Castiel’s hand, and moved his hips against him. 

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“I swear it,” Castiel told him fiercely. He’d never meant anything more in his life. “On everything, on my life, I swear it.”

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“No,” Dean’s voice cracked, and he tensed, their bodies pressed as close as they could manage while their hands were between them, “No, not like that, not on your life. Swear it on  _ mine _ .” He pulled away from him and walked Castiel back until his ankles hit cushions, and then shoved him down onto the pallet, before he climbed on top of him.

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Castiel was reminded vaguely of dreams he’d had, the thrill he’d felt any time Dean would do what he liked with him. They were both hard, both panting and desperate, but Castiel could see the ferocity in Dean’s eyes, the obstinate set of his brow that had first intrigued him into befriending him all those years ago. “Dean, I-” he reached up to take Dean’s face between his hands, but Dean knocked them away. 

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“Swear it,” he said again, and he pinned Castiel’s wrists above his head with one hand as he reached for a small jug of olive oil. 

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Castiel watched for a moment, half curious as Dean made messy work of coating his fingers in oil and then reaching behind himself as he turned his gaze back on Castiel. “On my life,” he gasped as he lifted his hips. “I want to hear you swear it on my life. Nothing else. Because you’ll have to kill me before I ever let you go again,” he panted. 

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Castiel swallowed thickly as he watched Dean’s face, an indecipherable mix of pleasure and pain painted there. He had done that to him by leaving. He would certainly never leave him again.

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“I swear it,” Castiel said finally, his voice rough. “I swear on your life, I’ll never leave you. Never.”

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A sob shook itself free from Dean’s chest, and he released Castiel’s wrists in order to support himself with that hand instead, while he continued to work himself open with the other.

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Castiel wrapped one arm around Dean’s waist and closed the hand of his other around the wrist of the hand that Dean had inside of himself. He pressed a kiss to his temple. 

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“Kill me,” Dean said over a soft moan. “If you ever even think about leaving me again, just kill me yourself.” 

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“I won’t,” Castiel murmured softly. Gently, he pressed up on Dean’s wrist, pressed him deeper inside of himself. Dean whimpered, and Castiel eased his wrist back, but Dean’s hips just followed after it. He pressed into him again, pulled out, a steady rhythm between them. 

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“You don’t have to worry about me leaving again. I was foolish, Dean. I thought it was something I had to do. I thought I couldn’t be worthy of you, of anyone, unless I fulfilled the prophecy. But now-” he grunted as he felt Dean pull his fingers out of himself, “Now I know, it never mattered to me. Not really. It was only ever you.” 

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Dean reached again for the olive oil, and Castiel wiped tears from Dean’s face as he coated his fingers with it again, and this time reached back to wrap them around Castiel. He didn’t waste much time, rather gave him a few quick passes, and lifted his hips to position them over Castiel, who could hardly believe what he was seeing.

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“Every night,” Dean said, as he held Castiel steady with one hand. “I promised I would give myself to you every night. Every day, if you wished it. That I would sacrifice my entire being to you. I’m going to make you my god, Cas. If it’s the last thing I ever do, I’ll worship you until you believe that you are.” He lowered himself onto Castiel then, bit by bit, until he was fully seated over him, and panting from the effort. 

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“I need you,” Castiel managed, and the truth of those words would have knocked him over if he hadn’t already been on his back. 

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Dean leaned in to kiss him, and Castiel wrapped both arms around him as he began to move. 

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They seemed to lose language as they went, every roll of Dean’s hips enough to completely steal all sense from Castiel’s mind. Dean wasn’t particularly gentle, rather he moved almost frantically, like he was afraid that if he didn’t move hard enough or fast enough that it would all disappear. Castiel tried to reassure him with touch. He slid his fingers along Dean’s skin, tracing freckles he remembered, letting his fingers skate along the lovely, thick muscles of his thighs, and eventually touching one of the few parts of Dean’s body he’d never had reason to touch before. 

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When they found release, it was together, and so powerful that Castiel found himself almost ashamed of how loudly he had cried out when Dean tightened around him. How had he managed to live so long and never known what it was like to be buried inside Dean’s body this way? How had he never known the pleasure to be had in having Dean’s come cover his fist, his torso, because he’d felt good enough with Castiel inside of him for it to happen? It felt like a miracle, one he wanted to repeat over and over again. If this was what it meant to have divine power, then he only wanted more. 

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Dean kissed him for a long time before he finally climbed off of him, and went for the wash basin, where he cleaned himself off, and then returned to do the same for Castiel. 

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Eventually, they settled, and lay face to face as they had so many times in their youth. 

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“You don’t know how many times I dreamed that,” Dean told him.

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“I think I might have an idea,” Castiel said as he rolled his eyes. He pressed his palm against Dean’s cheek, “I didn’t think you’d want me when I made it back. I didn’t know… I thought I had only been gone a year or so. Time...it passes differently among the gods. I never-”

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“I spoke in anger.” Dean said quickly. “When you left. I would never have been able to turn you away, even a century from now.” He laughed softly, “I regretted my words the moment you were gone.”

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“That night. I’d never been so happy before then. Dean, I was going to find a way- I wanted to. If my father hadn’t come when he did, I would have found a way to run away with you.”

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“Shhh,” Dean kissed the end of his nose, “You’re here now. And I want you to tell me everything. Leave nothing out, and I will tell you everything that has happened to me. As we have always done. But for now, let us have this?” He mirrored Castiel, and pressed his palm against Castiel’s cheek. “We can rest. You can let me feed you. Honeyed figs from my mouth. And let me worship you as many times as we can manage before Apollo returns,” he grinned mischievously.

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Castiel blanched as he recalled where they were and what they had done there. It hadn’t seemed so important when he’d had Dean’s mouth on him, or while he’d been inside of him, but this was a temple, and Apollo was not a god he particularly wanted to offend.

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“It’s fine,” Dean soothed, and pressed a kiss to his palm. “No god of mine would fear Apollo’s wrath. Not when he has done nothing but taken what was always his.” His eyes were fierce again, and he kissed Castiel with such fervor, that it was very easy to believe that he  _ was  _ Dean’s personal god. 

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He wrapped his arms around him, and let himself be swept up in such a powerful feeling. If anyone ever tried to separate them again, Castiel was sure he would be able to smite them with a wrath so intense that even Zeus would fear him. Let Apollo find them. Dean’s particular form of worship would power him for centuries. 

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo. That was a chapter. Took me ages. Sorry it's a bit late, down to the wire, but I still made it before November technically ended, so yay! I work well under pressure (not really)??? :'D Anyway, hope it was worth the wait! 
> 
> Quick notes- hmm, Panoptes was a "real," mythological creature/person(?) that I co-opted for the purpose of this fic. In the myths, he slays a few monsters, and works for Hera by guarding the nymph Io, who Zeus had turned into a cow because, well, he couldn't keep it in his pants. In some stories, Hermes, comes along and slays Argus Panoptes in order to get Io back for Zeus. I figured it gave him a little more motivation to kill him if Hermes was aware that Panoptes had taken one of his sons prisoner for a while. Call it artistic license. 
> 
> Why, you may ask, did I decide to make Cas a monster-fucker in this chapter? I have no idea. The mood struck, felt right so I did. And, look, it worked to get him out of a sticky...situation. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed Dean and Cas' reunion! Next chapter will hopefully wrap everything up, and, will, honestly probably be kinda late because of holiday stuff, but I'll do my best to finish by the end of the month. 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading! 💕


	5. PRAGMA (Enduring Love)

They made love all that afternoon. They ate and slept in between, and even reminisced about their childhood, about moments when they might have known what they were to one another, if only they’d looked more carefully. But they relished the feel of one another too much to stay parted for long, and so they took advantage of what time they had left before they would have to think of what was to be done next. 

“You cared for him, then? This Argus.” Dean was toying with Castiel’s fingers after they’d returned from lighting all the candles in the temple. It was among one of Dean’s duties as a servant of Apollo’s to light them before the sun set. If Apollo chose that temple to visit, then his way would be lit when he arrived. Dean explained that he decided at a whim which temple he would visit on any given night, and as he hadn’t been by in a few days, it was likely that he might visit in the next day or so. Castiel had offered to help, but Dean refused to allow it, stating that no other god would dare, and that once they left the temple, the only fires he’d be lighting himself, were the passionate ones that burned inside Castiel. Castiel had blushed, and contented himself with following him around until all the candles were lit, unwilling to let him out of his sight for too long. 

He had just finished recounting the last portion of his journey to Dean, who had decided that he needed to lay his head on Castiel’s chest and have full access to both of his hands to best listen. Castiel, of course, hadn’t minded in the least. 

Castiel hesitated to answer, “I might have. If things had been different.” They had promised complete honesty to one another when they began. It was how Castiel now knew that his mother had fallen ill and died, and how Dean had held him through the few tears he’d shed for her. He loved his mother, but they had never been exceptionally close, her nature being distant and somewhat vacant. 

It was also how he knew that Dean had occasionally taken Apollo as a lover in the time since he’d been under his protection, and what had prompted him to disclose what he had done with Panoptes that resulted in his escape. “He and I...we’re similar,” Castiel told him as Dean traced the veins in the back of his hand. “I’ve never known anyone else that felt as I did about their life. Who didn’t fit in, but still carried the weight of expectation. And apart from you, I had never known anyone who...wanted me as he did.” He sighed, feeling more ridiculous saying it all aloud than he had when the thoughts had been his own. “I missed you so terribly, and I was tired of feeling my loneliness. I wanted to be touched. I wanted to forget.” He burned with shame, despite the fact that Dean had expressed similar feelings. 

Dean traced a line across the inside of his palm, “I think of plenty who wanted you as we both did.” 

Castiel huffed and rolled his eyes, “There were plenty who wanted you. Perhaps you mistook them. You were careless when it came to that sort of thing.” 

Dean tilted his head up and looked at him, “There were so many who looked at you with desire that I nearly went mad with jealousy. Do you think I’d have been able to bear it if I had allowed myself to pay attention to all of them?” He rolled his eyes and settled back against Castiel’s chest, “Particularly in that last year before you left...men in the square, women in the market, that girl that carried your mother’s tapestry wool, it was plain how much they wanted you. I think only the fact that you were obtuse and the son of a god kept them at bay. I don’t know what I would have done if any of them had caught your attention.” 

Castiel wasn’t sure what to say to this. He had never imagined Dean to be so jealous, though he wasn’t surprised he had noticed things that he, himself, had missed. Castiel had never been exceptionally good at reading the expressions or intents of others. It was only the open way people tended to lust after Dean, and that fact that he understood their desire for him that allowed him to easily read what they would have plainly taken from him whether or not he’d have been willing to give it. 

His brows drew down before he spoke again, “Apart from you, only Panoptes advanced, and I was his prisoner for some time before then. I don’t think you had much to concern yourself with.” Whether or not what Dean said was true, even if someone had shown a legitimate interest in him, he doubted whether he would have paid them any attention. He had been largely content with his life after Dean had come into it. 

“And was he a good lover?” Dean asked. Castiel could hear the grin in his voice, though he couldn’t see his face anymore. “Did he touch you in all the ways you wanted to be touched?” He traced his finger from the underside of Castiel’s wrist to his elbow.

Castiel flushed. “I don’t see how that makes any difference.” 

Dean took that moment to turn over and climb up to straddle his hips again. He interlaced their fingers, and looked down at Castiel with barely concealed amusement. “It matters because I’m curious. And,” he leaned in close to Castiel’s ear to speak, “because I want to know what you like.” 

“I like you,” Castiel told him helplessly, still half embarrassed. 

Dean smiled and gave him a quick kiss, “Yes, but you liked him too, didn’t you? Unless he was an awful lover, in which case, tell me that as well. It’ll let me know what you don’t like, and I’ll have the satisfaction of having bested him without ever having met him.” 

Castiel furrowed his brow, “It isn’t a competition.” 

Dean sighed dramatically as he flopped over on his side next to him again, “Well, then you should know that Apollo is a  _ very _ attentive lover. And he’s quite talented with his-” 

Castiel clamped his hand over Dean’s mouth. He had no desire to compare himself to a god well-known for his endowments in all aspects. Dean began to laugh, and licked his palm, which Castiel took back and wiped down Dean’s arm as he glared at him. 

Dean leaned in and kissed his cheek. “Don’t worry, Castiel. I’m yours,” he added gently. “Always.” 

Castiel tried not to look as indignant as felt, but he suspected he was unsuccessful. 

“We don’t have to talk about it now,” Dean told him finally, and settled his head back on Castiel’s shoulder. “But I would like to know, truly. If he was important to you, then he’s important to me as well.” 

“He held me captive, and was going to auction me off,” he said, though there was a part of him that didn’t believe it at all. He hadn’t spent much time examining the way he’d felt about having been with Panoptes; he’d been too preoccupied with escaping and finding his way back to Dean.

“I think,” said Dean careful ly, “That given the chance to reconsider, he might have decided to keep you. You said that he could have found you after you escaped if he’d wanted to. Perhaps, he decided to let you go. Speaking from experience, I’d never give you to anyone else, no matter what they offered. Perhaps he chose the lesser of two evils and let you escape to avoid having to give you up. And having been one for most of my life, I think I can speak quite confidently to the value of a slave. It would have been a difficult choice either way.” He poked Castiel in his ribs, “Don’t look at me that way. We both know it’s true.”

“I’ll make sure we’re both free, if I have to conquer that boy’s kingdom to do it,” Castiel told him stubbornly. Dean would never belong to anyone again as long as Castiel breathed air.

Dean laughed, and it was the loveliest sound that Castiel had heard in years. 

“Let’s hope it does not come to that, then.” 

When Apollo arrived, they were dozing. 

If Castiel had it his way, he would have been awake, fully clothed, and at least ready to meet him as he would any of his equals. But he was asleep, contented after letting Dean feed him figs—which he called “offerings,” as he licked the juices from Castiel’s lips—and worse yet, he was still totally naked next to Dean, with absolutely no chance of hiding what they had done. 

Castiel startled as he blinked himself awake, sucking in a sharp breath when he set eyes on the god that stood over them, bare to the waist, one hand at his hip, and glowing like burnished gold. Apollo was taller, perhaps, than was average, but he didn’t look to surpass Castiel in height, despite the fact that Castiel felt quite small as he looked up at him. Unlike Hermes, he looked almost tame, with golden hair that fell over his shoulders, and a clean-shaven, sweet countenance. Of course, Castiel wasn’t foolish enough to be taken in by his appearance. As with all gods, there was ferocity to his bright, unnaturally colored eyes that threatened danger. 

It was while they regarded one another that Dean also woke. He arched his back, yawned, and then rested his head on Castiel’s shoulder, his eyes half-lidded, “Greetings, Apollo.” 

Castiel wished very much that Dean wasn’t always so reckless. He’d forgotten how carefree he could be, even in less than ideal circumstances. When Hermes had first shown himself to Dean years ago, Castiel had been grateful that he’d bowed his head in deference so that his father didn’t strike him down for any perceived lack of respect. But here, in front of Apollo, he showed no such humility or sense of self-preservation, and it immediately set Castiel on edge. 

Apollo tilted his head, and offered a sweet-faced smile, “Dean.” His voice was melodic and fond. “What do we have here? I’ve come to see you, and I find another in my place.” He tutted, “What have you to say for yourself?”

“I’d say,” Dean began lazily, “That all this time you were in his.” 

“This is him, then? You’d rather be a slave of his, rather of his father’s house, than to serve and belong to me for eternity?” Apollo arched a barely visible blond brow. “I thought you more clever than that. Reason it out for me, then.”

“It is a slavery of love,” Dean said simply. “I love him, and so I do not mind being his slave. I think you should know something about that, if the stories hold any truth.” Dean held Apollo’s gaze for a moment before the god spoke again.

Apollo’s eyes flashed, “And what has such love yielded you until now? Were you not sold? Were you not without refuge before I took you in? I have never had a love which has treated me thus.”

Dean opened his mouth, and mildly terrified about what might come out, Castiel quickly rose to his feet. “Uncle,” he blurted.

Apollo narrowed his eyes, and cut them sharply in Castiel’s direction.

Castiel thought he should speak before Apollo had the chance to decide what to do with him, and though any other mortal would have shrunk at the look he’d given him, Castiel did no such thing. “I...mean no offense,” he started carefully. He glanced back at Dean who looked mildly amused, and completely shameless—reclined on his elbows with his legs spread carelessly. Castiel had to remind himself, very sternly, that this was no time to get aroused. It was simply more difficult than it should have been given what Dean had just said, and how unbothered he looked by the fact that they both might be struck down at any moment. 

“And yet you stand before me,” Apollo said, his voice hard.

Castiel turned his eyes back to the god, and before he had the chance to drop to one knee, as he might have done, or answer to Apollo’s accusation, Dean did the job for him. 

“He is a god,” he said, his voice dripping adoration. “He need not kneel.”

This seemed to amuse Apollo, “Is that so? And who made him?”

Castiel could feel Dean’s eyes on him, but he didn’t dare take his attention from Apollo. He averted his eyes briefly when he began to speak, but quickly returned them to Apollo’s face so he could watch for any sign of danger. “Hermes sired me. Forgive him-” Castiel began, but Dean carried on. 

“He is  _ my _ god. I made him.” Dean got up and pressed himself against Castiel’s side as he took his hand in his. “As all gods have been made at one time by men. And as love has made all lovers.” 

If Castiel hadn’t been so terrified of what Apollo might do to Dean for his insolence, he would have kissed him. Above all else, Castiel knew that the gods appreciated humility and piety—Hermes had given him to his mother for hers—and so he knew how dangerous it was for Dean to make such claims while standing before a god as powerful and wrathful as Apollo. However, regardless of Apollo’s fury, Castiel would sooner die than let him lay a hand on Dean, and he squared his shoulders and angled himself so that he stood between them. 

“You believe men have made the gods?” Apollo tilted his head in the other direction, and Castiel could see the slow rise of his ire. 

He knew this game. A mortal could make a boast, and it might come across as amusing once, a jest. Twice, and it became profane. A third time would not be tolerated without retribution. At the least, Dean would need to prove his claim, and if he failed, then there was no hope for him. Such acts were often punished with death at best, and transfiguration or ceaseless years of agony and torture at the worst. Apollo, while known for his wrath and the swiftness with which he punished those who wronged him, was not particularly vindictive, and so Castiel thought it likely that he would simply strike Dean down where he stood.

Regardless, he couldn’t allow it, and Castiel spoke before he knew what he was saying. “Is he wrong?” He eased Dean behind him a little more fully, and gripped his hand as though his life depended upon it. “Prometheus created man, and he was a titan, not a god. My father told me, long ago, that Zeus wanted to destroy humans, but Prometheus convinced him to spare them. He saw their value.”

“Prometheus was duly punished for his human fondness,” Apollo said, his eyes flashing dangerously. “The titans no longer reign. Zeus could still destroy mankind if he wished it. I don’t see your point,  _ nephew _ .” 

“And destroy you all in doing so,” Castiel said evenly. He lifted his chin, a sudden wave of calm washing over him as he felt Dean press closer. “When man ceases to exist, who, then, is left to worship the gods? When Zeus decides to destroy humanity, he will have destroyed the mirror which, for so long, has reflected the divine power of all Olympians. He will have destroyed himself. There will be no more sacrifices, no more feasts, no worship or followers to keep temples or make offerings. There will be no purpose for you or any of the others, and driven mad by the inability to quench your insatiable need for attention, the race of gods will fall and wither, like leaves in winter. Gods are made when men know where to point their worship and belief. Their love. If there are no men, then there are no gods either. If there is no love, then there are no lovers.”

“Pretty words, but what of your temple? Your feasts? Your followers and sacrifices? He calls you a god, what have you to prove it?” Apollo held out his hand to one side and produced a gleaming, golden bow and a quivering silver arrow. He knocked the arrow and pointed it at Castiel’s heart. “Shall we test it? Your divinity? Do you think you will survive if I shoot you now? Zeus would. Your father would. Shall we see if your divine blood flows farther than your eyes, boy?”

There was something almost funny about being called “boy,” by a god that looked more a boy than either Dean or himself had in some time. Castiel knew his looks belied the true extent of his power though, and he schooled his face. He could feel Dean’s heartbeat against his back, one with his own, and he drew strength from it, from the very nearness of him. Castiel fixed Apollo with a determined look.

"Dean already told you. He is the only follower I will ever need. He has made a willing sacrifice of his mouth, of his heart, to me countless times. His body  _ is  _ my temple. I intend to rest there every night. I will  _ live  _ in him from now until the end of time. The spear he crafted me has pierced the skin of a god greater than you, Apollo. And unlike you, I do not need endless worship or sacrifice. I need only him. His love. He will sustain me for eternity, and he will never want for anything under my care. Do what you must with me, but if you dare touch him, you will know no peace for the rest of your days. Eternity is a long time." He wasn’t sure where his words were coming from. He had never been so eloquent in his life, but he wasn’t going to question it. What he felt was what he spoke, and he wondered if this was the way in which Dean lived all of the time. 

He felt Dean’s grip tighten around his hand, and he chanced a look at him over his shoulder. There was an expression on his face that made Castiel want to hold him. He looked as though he might cry, and Castiel turned to face him more fully, Apollo and his fury forgotten for a moment as he took Dean’s face in his hands. He pressed a kiss to his forehead. Dean’s skin was warm beneath his lips and fingertips, and he could feel that warmth bleeding into his own skin. He’d meant all that he’d said. Even if he’d wasted years chasing nothing so far, even if he died in obscurity with nothing to his name, it would be worth it to have held Dean in his arms as he had all afternoon. He felt as powerful as a god already, and he knew he’d give his last breath for the man that stood before him now. 

He should have known better than to turn his back to Apollo. He had already insulted him many times over, and this was yet another slight. Between Dean’s profanity and his own bold words, even the most patient of the gods would have long since lost their good humor. 

He saw the look on Dean’s face before he felt Apollo’s arrow, and it was that narro w margin of time, which Dean’s horrified expression had given him, that allowed him to shove Dean away in order to protect him.

Castiel, for all that he had been through, had never been shot before, even in training. And this was the arrow of Apollo, surely whatever horrors came with being shot by a mortal arrow were only increased tenfold by being shot with a god’s. He didn’t know what to expect to feel, or how he would react to the pain or blood loss, or if, in his final moments, all the best parts of his life would rush through his mind’s eye. 

It had never occurred to him that Dean would be there if he ever found himself in a life threatening situation, and so he had never considered how painful it would be to see those wide, green eyes spilling tears, or how incapable he would be of hearing anything Dean was screaming, either at him or at Apollo. His ears were ringing or buzzing—he wasn’t sure which—and while he’d felt the arrow, felt the sharp point of it in his back, right behind his heart, all he could feel now was an intense heat that seemed to be pouring out of him. Dean’s arms were around him now—he’d scrambled back to him as soon as he’d gotten his bearings, and was practically holding him up—and Castiel couldn’t feel that either, no matter how much he tried to focus on his touch or how much he would have liked for his last moments to have been all Dean. Instead, all he felt was heat, molten gold pouring out of every part of him, and that infernal buzzing. Like the voices of bees, but worse. There was nothing peaceful about it, but he wasn’t particularly frightened either. If this was what dying felt like, then he thought the poets might have gotten a few things wrong. 

Castiel lifted his hand to Dean’s face and brushed away his tears with his thumb as he looked at him. If he couldn’t hear him, then he wanted to see him. He wanted to make sure he would be safe from any further assault from Apollo. He wanted him to be free. Would Hermes be willing to help him find King Samuel and ensure Dean’s safety? It wasn’t likely. 

Castiel stared hard at him for a moment and realized that if he died here, with Apollo still present, Dean’s surety would always be in peril. Either Apollo would kill him too, or he would keep him as his own, in which case Dean would never be truly free. He hated the thought. He was sick of the gods, sick of their meddling, of being a slave to their whims and wiles. He took a deep breath and felt the first twinge of anything other than heat radiate from the arrow wound in his back. It felt like pain, like pulling glass from a wound, but he didn’t care. If he was going to die here, then he was going to make it so that Dean would have a chance to escape. Just as he was about to turn away from him to face whatever wrath was left in the sun god, Dean seized his face between his hands and kissed him once more. 

It was not the time, but Castiel gave into it. Dean was kissing him for all that he was worth, like his life depended on it, like the  _ whole world  _ depended on it, and it was a force too powerful for Castiel to resist. He had spent years with Dean by his side, so many of them, and though they had been comparatively few in number, the years he’d spent without him had been agony. It felt unfair that after only a few hours of bliss, they were going to be parted again. So he let himself have it. He drank Dean in, so deeply it felt as though he were drinking the last dregs of wine left on earth. They kissed until Castiel thought his lungs would collapse, and it was then, when he thought they both might have been on the verge of death, because there was no way Dean wasn’t out of air if he was feeling like this, that Castiel felt the heat in his body intensify tenfold.

Initially, he thought Apollo had shot him again. It made sense that his arrows would radiate such heat, and he assumed that if roles had been reversed, he would have taken the chance to finish them both off at once. The feeling was so great that he shoved Dean away from him again in fear of incinerating him by touch alone, but the look on Dean’s face as Castiel staggered away from him wasn’t pain or fear or heartbreak, it was something more like awe. 

He thought it was something Apollo had done, some trick or new attack he was about to enact, and so through the heat, and the ringing, Castiel turned to face the god, who, much to his surprise looked more terrified than Castiel would have thought any god capable. Apollo had moved away from him, but his eyes were fixed on Castiel, wide, and blue, and he held his bow before him.

It took Castiel a moment to realize that rather than feeling weaker, as he should have, ever closer to death, he felt quite the opposite. For a moment, the noise in his ears intensified to such a degree that he couldn’t help but clap his hands over them, uncertain as to where the pain from that sound ended and the heat he felt radiating from his core began. 

And then, even more suddenly than it had begun, it was all over, and Castiel’s world snapped into sharp focus. He sucked in a breath, and it sounded as though he’d been underwater for centuries. He could hear so many things—the beat of Dean’s heart, the way it kicked up when Castiel glanced over his shoulder to make sure he was still all right, the way Apollo ground his teeth, and the quiet hum of power pouring off of, not just Apollo, but himself as well. The arrow in his back fell away and clattered to the floor, and though he didn’t reach back to check, he knew the wound had healed. His vision, too, was enhanced, everything almost too clear, and too bright for him to stand, and it was this enhanced vision that allowed him to take note of Apollo’s subtle movement, the materialization of another arrow. 

“I would not,” Castiel said, and he knew he sounded so like Hermes in that moment that anyone might have thought them the same. He opened his hand at his hip, and where once there was nothing, Dean’s spear—the one he had used and lost on Poseidon—appeared.

He hefted it as Apollo knocked his arrow. 

“You would raise your hand to me? Do you wish for death?” Apollo’s voice sounded strained, but he had recovered himself, and he looked fierce and steady again.

“Your arrow did not kill me, Apollo. I do not think this one will either. But my spear  _ has  _ pierced the flesh of Poseidon. Will you take  _ your  _ chances? I do not miss.” 

Apollo clenched his teeth, “You forget your place, son of Hermes. This is still my temple.” 

Castiel did not back down. “And I would leave it without further insult or incident. But I will not leave without Dean, and I will not leave until I know you will leave us alone.” 

“You have desecrated my sacred space by laying with him here. Am I to let that go unpunished? What of his hubris?” 

Dean was suddenly at Castiel’s elbow, chiton draped sloppily around his torso, as he pressed his palm to the small of Castiel’s back. “You see him, now,” he said. “He looks every bit as godly as you to me. Your face spoke for you just now. I have not spoken falsely. Thus you need not punish me, and your reputation remains intact.”

Castiel narrowed his eyes, “And you have lain _with_ my only temple, so I would think to call us even. Or shall we ask Zeus which offense he finds more egregious? To fuck _in_ a temple that isn’t your own or to fuck the temple itself? Let us leave, or I will strike you down, and go while your blood spills on the floor of your _sacred space_.”

Dean’s hand curled into a fist at Castiel’s back, and he wondered whether he had offended him by speaking thus. He would have to remember to apologize later, if they managed to make it out alive. He only meant to make a point to Apollo, not to objectify or humiliate Dean. 

For the moment, they seemed to be at an impasse, and Castiel stared back at Apollo for a long time, daring him to make even the slightest movement in their direction. He had thought Dean’s spear lost to him forever, and he would not hesitate to use it now that it was back in his hand. His hand tightened around the shaft, muscles straining as they coiled in preparation to let it fly. And for a moment, he thought he would have to use it—that Apollo was going to try his luck. 

He looked half enraged, half fearful, and after just a moment more, released his bow and arrow, disappearing them into thin air before he turned on his heel and vanished as well. Every candle in the temple snuffed at once as he went, and Dean and Castiel were left in the dark.

In spite of this, Castiel didn’t drop his guard, too afraid that the moment he did, Apollo would reappear and smite them both. He still wasn’t quite sure what had happened, but he wasn’t going to question it while they were still in such a vulnerable position. 

He startled as Dean began to dress him, and finally moved out of his rigid posture to help, though his senses were still on high alert. 

“What happened?” Dean asked as he clumsily fastened Castiel’s chiton at his shoulders and then moved to gather a few things. His words were as quick as his movements. “We both should be dead,” he was tossing various items into a bag he had thrown over his shoulder, working by the sliver of moonlight that shone through one of the high windows in the temple. “I can’t believe I was so  _ stupid _ . I didn’t think he would-” 

Castiel crossed to him and wrapped his free hand around Dean’s wrist to stop his movement. He could hear the barely repressed fear in his voice, and he wanted to reassure him. 

Dean turned to look at him and there were tears in his eyes again. 

“I’ll keep you safe,” Castiel said simply, his eyebrows knitting together. “I won’t let him touch you. Don’t worry.” 

Dean jerked his wrist free, and his fear became fury in an instant, “I’m not worried for me, you idiot!” He wiped his eyes, but he still looked angry. “Let’s go,” he snapped. “Before he decides to return. There’s an inn a few miles from here. If we’re lucky, they’ll have space.” 

The inn was farther than Dean had thought, and they walked the whole way in silence. The only noises Castiel could hear were made by the wildlife in the forest, and his own faint hum of power, which seemed not to want to subside no matter how he tried. He wasn’t sure whether or not the change that had occurred in him was permanent, but he didn’t think he liked it very much. He felt conspicuous and unnatural, and the fact that Dean wasn’t speaking to him wasn’t helping the situation at all. He wasn’t exactly sure what he had said or done to set him off, but he was familiar with this side of Dean. When he got into a strop, his displeasure with everyone and everything was absolutely palpable, and he tended toward silence and silent aggression until he became frustrated enough to blow up and expel his negative feelings. Castiel had always found that goading him usually resulted in a swifter, but less effective explosion, which often left him angrier longer. If he waited him out, Dean tended to get fed up with himself, and while he might cry or shout, the feelings were generally short-lived and intense, and they could get back to interacting normally more easily after the fact. It didn’t happen terribly often, but they’d had their share of disagreements as children, even though Castiel had been largely content to concede whatever it was that Dean wished. 

It wasn’t until they were safely inside one of the inn’s rooms, an ewer of wine, and dried bread and cheese between them, that Castiel thought he should try to ease the tension in the air. He might have continued to wait any other time, but he had only very recently been reunited with Dean, and they had both very nearly met their ends mere hours ago, so he felt a little more urgent about dealing with their problems than he might have otherwise. 

“I thought everything you’d made me was lost.” He ran his fingers along the polished wood of Dean’s spear, “I don’t know how it happened, but I’m glad to have this back.”

Dean shoved a crust of bread into his mouth, but didn’t look in his direction or say anything. 

“I’m...sorry if I offended you,” Castiel tried again. “When I was speaking to Apollo. I did not mean...you’re...more important than that. I just wanted him to-” he was not good at this. When he’d spoken to Apollo, the words had come easily, but now, he felt uncertain again. “I didn’t want anything to happen to you. I’d have said anything-”

“What about you?” Dean said sharply. He stood, and he was suddenly totally focused on Castiel. “Do you honestly think I care about what you had to say to him? That I’d be offended by being deemed your temple?”

“Dean, I-” Castiel set the spear aside and stood up too.

“Don’t. Just don’t. You left me once, and I spent years trying to cope. And then, I-” Dean wiped his eyes furiously, and took a steadying breath. “I was foolish. But you made it worse. You nearly died.” The tears came anyway, and Dean covered his eyes with one hand. “You left me behind before, but this time, I nearly cost us both. I don’t,” he gasped for breath, but didn’t bother to try to finish speaking. 

Castiel closed the space between them, and held Dean the way he’d wanted to when they’d still been standing before Apollo. “It’s done,” he said softly. “We’re safe. I won’t leave again.” He ran his fingers over Dean’s hair, and let him cry. He understood the fear; he’d felt it countless times when he’d been away, and had spent years quashing it so that it didn’t overwhelm him. Dean had probably done the same, but being so near to being parted again had been too much. When he’d been away, the thought of never seeing Dean again had been ever present and loathsome to contemplate, but he had borne it. After having had him back, after having shared his body with him, the idea felt completely unbearable. 

“You can’t leave, and you can’t die,” Dean said finally, his voice muffled against Castiel’s chest, and his tears beginning to dry.

“If Apollo’s arrow didn’t kill me, I’m not sure there’s much that will. At least for now. While I’m like this.” He could still see the faint glow his body was giving off—the same glow that the gods he’d met in his time always gave off—and he hadn’t yet gotten used to his heightened senses. 

Dean drew back enough to look at him, “Do you know why it happened?” He ran his hands along Castiel’s biceps and looked him over appraisingly. It was obvious that he hadn’t quite gotten used to Castiel’s enhancement either. 

“I can’t really be sure. But, I’m sure it has something to do with my godhead. Hermes might know, but I wish you luck getting any sensible answers about anything out of him.” He was still angry at Hermes for how he had kept what had happened to Dean from him, and for how he had been the cause of their parting in the first place, though he knew if he had been of a stronger character back then, he would have refused him to begin with. Perhaps leaving then, had made saving Dean now possible.

Dean drew his fingertips slowly over Castiel’s skin, “Perhaps we can ask for guidance from Athena when we see your king? You said she was his patron?”

Castiel nodded. 

“Then it’s settled.” Dean wrapped his arms around Castiel’s neck and pulled himself closer to him, “We will rest here for two days, and then I will follow wherever you go.” 

Castiel’s brow furrowed, “Why two? The sooner we leave-” 

Dean laid his fingers against Castiel’s lips and then spoke lowly into his ear, “Because this temple wants to be fucked again.” 

Castiel felt himself color at Dean’s reuse of his earlier phrasing, words he probably never would have spoken if he hadn’t been trying to intimidate Apollo.

Dean laughed and kissed his cheek before he turned and pulled him along by the hand. “I might also like to know what it’s like to conquer my own god, make you my temple,” he grinned. “It probably wouldn’t hurt for us to gather some supplies either, so I think we can spare the two days. Don’t you?” 

Castiel nodded dumbly. He imagined Dean had already conquered him. Even with his presently enhanced power, Castiel thought Dean would always manage to defeat him with just a look or a phrase. He was so hopelessly in love with him. 

He turned to face him again when they reached the bed, and with the utmost reverence, Dean undressed him again. 

Although it was nothing like the home he remembered, the inn more closely resembled it than Apollo’s temple had, and Castiel could almost imagine that he’d never left as they touched one another in the dim morning light. Unlike the urgency with which they had come together in the temple, they were slower now, more tender as they traced lines in one another’s faces, and pressed kisses to sensitive skin. Even their cries were quiet and soft, heady with years of pent up desire and sorrow at having been parted for so long. 

It felt new. Like discovering fire for the first time, and he wasn’t sure how that could be possible when they had spent the prior afternoon together, so tangled in one another that he hadn’t been able to tell where one of them ended and the other began. He felt wound tight, like his entire body might snap at the slightest touch, which didn’t make any sense either, because Dean was inside of him, so deep Castiel was sure he had become part of him—and shouldn’t that alone have been enough to ruin him if that was the case? 

Eventually, there came relief. So much of it, sweet, and deep, and felt so intensely between them that Castiel had tears in his eyes as they finished. Dean held him through it, nose against the back of his neck, a square palm pressed right over Castiel’s heart. He could hardly breathe. 

He gasped and Dean gently urged him to turn over and face him.

“Was it too much?” Dean whispered. He brushed his thumbs under Castiel’s eyes, and traced his fingertips along his jaw and down the bridge of his nose.

Castiel shook his head and caught Dean’s hand in his. 

Dean grinned at him and wriggled closer. “Good. Because I wouldn’t mind doing it that way again. Or any other way, for that matter, but always good enough to bring you to tears.” He brushed Castiel’s remaining tears away and chuckled softly. 

Castiel scowled. “Gods don’t cry. They can’t.” 

Dean slid his fingers into Castiel’s hair as he looked at him, “Mine does,” he said gently. “He’s special.” He kissed him. “Get some rest. We’ll both need it if we’re going to travel soon. Between Apollo and anyone who might recognize me, we’ll have plenty to watch out for as we go.” 

Castiel held Dean tighter, “I won’t let them touch you. I swear it.” 

Dean rolled his eyes, “Is it not better if we don’t give them reason to try? If we’re careful, then we might go on without further issue. And if we’re lucky, we’ll have plenty of time together at the end of it. Now, be quiet. I’m sleeping.” He tucked himself under Castiel’s chin and curled into him the way he had when they had been young. 

It was incredible to him that Dean could so easily bounce  back from all they had just been through, as though nothing had happened to them or changed between them in years. Castiel sighed and rolled his eyes fondly. If he’d have asked, Dean would have told him that it was because nothing had changed between them or ever would. Their love for one another was enduring, so what was there to worry about?

And Castiel supposed that was true. He had not overcome gods and monsters to see Dean again, only to lose him just as he found him. 

Traveling in Dean’s company was so unlike traveling alone, that Castiel could almost have sworn that the experiences were entirely different, unrelated activities. He’d almost forgotten that before he’d left on his father’s errand, neither of them had seen much of the world, and the shine of things that had been new to him when he’d left home was considerably dulled by how much he had missed his companion. Seeing them with Dean, was like seeing them all for the first time again. 

The smallest things delighted Dean. He’d get excited about something as mundane as how the sailors on the ship tied their knots, and then want to show Castiel how it was done, or chatter to him about it. Castiel had never been happier in his life to follow Dean around and let him show him anything he wished. And on the occasion Dean put him on the spot, and asked him to disappear something just to make it reappear again somewhere else for everyone’s entertainment, Castiel did it without complaint. Though, he may have rolled his eyes or sighed his exasperation just so he didn’t look to be giving in too easily.

As always, Dean made himself popular with most everyone they encountered, and Castiel would often watch him from a distance, still not quite able to believe that what he was seeing was real. The divine glow in Castiel’s skin had dulled somewhat, and it was sometimes easy for him to believe that he had dreamed the whole thing. He’d spent so many nights burying his thoughts and desires, only to have them mercilessly assault him when he closed his eyes, that falling asleep with Dean in his arms, or thinking about the fact that he had offended and stared down Apollo, and lived to tell it, felt as though it  _ had  _ to be a dream. But then Dean would catch his eye and smile at him across the ship, or whisper how he loved him in the dark of the night, as he pressed kisses into his skin, and Castiel would believe it all. It felt real, more real than anything else he’d encountered in the last few years, and so he let himself have it. 

When they reached Samuel’s kingdom, after more than a fortnight of travel, Castiel found himself growing unexpectedly anxious. 

They stopped to make themselves more presentable, and it was while Castiel scrubbed dirt from his face that Dean chose to broach the topic with him. 

“If you keep on like that, I think you might rub the flesh from your bones,” Dean said. He held the spear he’d made for Castiel between his palms as he waited for him. 

Castiel dried his face and glared at him. 

Dean lifted his eyebrows, “Speak. Tell me what troubles you, and I will soothe your worries.” He grinned, and it was clear how he intended to do his soothing. 

The thought was ridiculous enough that Castiel huffed a quiet laugh. 

Dean stood before him, but didn’t touch him, “He laughs. I was beginning to think you’d forgotten how. Or that you’d met a gorgon while you were away and your face had turned to stone. I wasn’t sure which. So, tell me, how can I help?” His hands tightened around the spear, and his eyes searched Castiel’s face. 

When they left the ship, they had decided it was best, perhaps, if they maintained the look of mere companions until they knew what they were walking into. They knew nothing about the city, and next to nothing about the supposed boy-king, and the last thing Castiel wanted was to offend the sensibilities of the people they were meant to be asking for help. It had only been a couple of days, and Castiel could see how keenly Dean felt the absence of their contact. He’d always been more physical than Castiel, even more since they’d reunited; and yet, he hadn’t so much as brushed against him since they’d set foot on dry land again. 

“It helps that you’re here,” Castiel told him, and very carefully, he pressed the tips of his fingers against the back of Dean’s palm. “I only fear what will come next. That there will be no safe haven for us. That this king might actually be a tyrant in disguise.” 

Dean drew in a breath and stepped back enough to break the contact as he pressed his head against the shaft of the spear, “There’s no use fearing what we cannot change. We will endure it if we must, or bend wills if we cannot. Besides,” he grinned, “You said he is only a boy. I think between the two of us, we might manage. You have defeated two gods already.”

“I’m not sure I’d call it defeat in either case,” Castiel said flatly. He’d just barely escaped both encounters. That they were both still whole and alive was nothing short of a miracle. He wasn’t keen to tempt Fate a third time, even against the likes of a boy, and particularly if that boy was patronized by Athena. 

“I see now why you two are so well matched.” Hermes had appeared, the last of his wind gust still tousling his hair as Castiel turned to face him. “You’re nearly as dramatic as my son.” 

“Father,” Castiel said evenly. He would do his best to be civil for his sake and for Dean’s, but he was still quite angry, and with his nerves as worn as they were, it was proving to be a difficult task. “I did not expect to see you again so soon.”  _ Or at all, _ he added to himself.

Hermes considered him, a sardonic smile on his lips. “Yes, well, I thought to be your envoy. To be plain, you have never had the gift of speech, unless you count conversing with beasts. I can’t say that you look particularly decent these days either, and I don’t imagine you did yourself any favors by making an enemy of Apollo.” 

Castiel scowled. 

Hermes cut his eyes to Dean, who hadn’t made any movement, either in deference or disdain. “As a lover, is it your habit to bring the wrath of the gods down on your beloved? Or did you choose to flout decorum as a special homecoming gift for him? I question the sincerity of your feelings if so.” 

“I only spoke truth,” Dean said bluntly. “I won’t apologize to you, Apollo, or any other god for that. I don’t need to justify the depth of my emotion to you.”

Hermes’ brows lifted as his eyes took on a familiar, godly spark. 

Castiel quickly intervened. “We appreciate your consideration.” He angled himself in front of Dean, ever so slightly. “We were just about to request an audience with the king. I’m sure having you speak for us would...be of help.” 

“Of course,” Hermes said evenly. “At any rate, your reputation is attached to mine. It’s best if I make sure you don’t tarnish it. Come. You shouldn’t like to keep him waiting.” 

Calling it a palace, would have been an overstatement. Castiel was fairly certain that his parents’ estate had been nearly as large, or perhaps even larger, than the one they approached, though it seemed well kept from the outside. 

Hermes strode through the courtyard without hesitation or pretense, and Castiel followed with Dean at his elbow, as he tried not to pay too much attention to the people that gawked at them as they passed by. He seemed to know exactly where he was going, so Castiel saw no reason to question him. He eventually stopped at the far end of the courtyard, where there was a youth bent in a pose of supplication before an altar, long curls all about his head. 

Dean’s hair was shorn now, cut when he had reached puberty, as was their custom, but seeing this boy now reminded Castiel, ridiculously, of how Dean had been in their youth. He faltered in his steps, and he could feel Dean’s curious glance in his direction, but neither of them spoke. 

Hermes stood before him for a few moments, and Castiel was surprised by the restraint his father showed. He wasn’t usually one to stay quiet when he made an appearance. Even if Castiel had been especially inclined to prayer, he doubted whether Hermes would have waited for him to finish his communion with the gods if speaking to him was his aim. 

Eventually, the boy looked up, and when he saw Hermes, though he seemed slightly surprised at first, offered a small smile before bowing his head in respect. 

“With such devotion, it’s no wonder Athena favors you. Are you fit to have guests? I’ve brought you a pair.”

“Guests?” He still sounded quite young, and the open, innocent look in his eyes made Castiel doubt whether this was the king Hermes had told him about. His youth might have been easily overlooked; but his modest home, and the solemn way which he prayed seemed unlikely of someone who had conquered a kingdom and won the favor of a goddess as revered as Athena. 

“My son,” Hermes gestured to Castiel with a casual wave of his hand. “I believe you mentioned wanting to meet him. He brings with him…” he glanced briefly at Castiel and Dean, who were standing close to one another, but as they had agreed, refrained from touching. “...he brings with him his most valued companion.” 

Castiel’s eyes narrowed, and he wasn’t sure if Hermes was being kind or insulting them. Calling Dean what he was—his beloved—would have destroyed the image they were trying to maintain, however, describing him as he had, both reinforced this image and failed to describe Dean’s true worth at the same time. 

The boy’s eyes grew wide, and he stepped forward, and clasped Castiel’s arm, quite firmly and eagerly, in the traditional way one would greet a brother or loyal peer. 

It caught Castiel off guard, and he could see the barely concealed amusement on Dean’s face from the corner of his eye. 

“It was you who stole the trident for me? Castiel? I could not have accomplished what I did without your help. I owe you much. I’d argue even my kingdom.” 

“Ah…” Castiel furrowed his brows, uncertain as to how honest he should be about the circumstances surrounding his thievery. The fact was that he hadn’t stolen the trident for this boy. He’d come to realize he hadn’t done it for any particular reason at all considering the outcome of his prophecy. And he’d nearly gotten both Dean and himself killed upon his return. “King Samuel, you, perhaps, give me too much credit,” he said finally as he took his arm back. 

He flushed, “Call me Sam. Please.” He turned his dimpled smile on Dean, “You’re his companion? Were you there when he encountered Poseidon? The goddess Athena tells me it created quite the stir. She says he split the sea god’s skull.” As obvious as it was that he tried to maintain an air of maturity, Sam seemed unable to master the note of excitement and wonder in his voice that any boy his age might have held for such a feat. 

Surprisingly, Dean didn’t speak right away, and when Castiel looked at him to discover why, he found that Dean looked rather like he was trying very hard to solve a difficult puzzle, or like he’d been unexpectedly beaten at dice. As it was so unusual for Dean to be speechless for any reason, Castiel broke his own rule, and placed a concerned hand on his shoulder. 

“Forgive us. We’ve been traveling for some time, and prior to that, I’d only just returned home. We’re very tired.” 

“Yes,” Hermes sighed piteously, “Do forgive them.” 

Sam looked almost as concerned as Castiel felt, “Of course. I didn’t think. You’ll stay for dinner, of course. And then you may rest here as long as you need before we talk about your travels. I’d like to know everything. I can show you to a room.” He started to turn to lead them away.

“Best send someone else,” Hermes interjected. “I carry a message for you, and I don’t think the two of them will mind too terribly much if I keep you for a bit. 

Castiel scowled at Hermes, but the god seemed not to notice—or if he did, not to care. He should have known that his presence served at least two purposes. He never did anything for selfless reasons. He was only killing two birds with one stone by escorting them there. 

Sam bowed his head, and then waved someone over—a servant—and instructed them to show Castiel and Dean to a room, and to make sure they were well cared for. 

Dean smiled briefly, but it was clear that he hadn’t quite recovered from whatever troubled him to begin with as they left the courtyard and were led to a cozy room on the second floor of the house. 

When they were settled and alone again, Castiel took Dean’s face between his hands and looked into his eyes, “What’s the matter?” he whispered. Whatever it was that Dean had noticed, or that had offended him, Castiel promised himself he would take care of it. There were so many things they needed to take care of—Dean’s status as stolen property, his own status as, at the least, a demi-god for the time being, not to mention a thief, and the uncertainty of their future together—but whatever it was, big or small, he would fix it. 

Dean’s eyes flitted to Castiel’s mouth, and Castiel could tell instantly what had gone through his head. 

“Tell me,” he said, straightening a bit, and dropping his hands from Dean’s face. “It won’t work to try and distract me this time.” It had been Dean’s way when they were children to change the subject when he felt particularly bothered or hurt, especially when fuming silence wasn’t an option. They hadn’t fought or argued since after they’d left Apollo’s temple, so it was obvious he was running low on ways to avoid his feelings. 

“It is nothing,” Dean sighed. “Only a memory.” 

Castiel furrowed his brows, “What sort of memory? You looked as though you’d seen a spectre.”

“I…”

“Dean,” Castiel urged, and, unable to help himself, took his hand again. 

“That boy.”

“Sam?”

A troubled expression passed briefly over Dean’s face, “It’s only that he shares the name of my brother. And I think the two of them would be of an age.” He sighed and waved it off, “It only startled me.” He squeezed Castiel’s hand, “I haven’t thought of...any of that in a long time.” 

“Your family,” Castiel said softly. Dean had rarely spoken of them after he had explained how he had come to be the property of Castiel’s family when they had been children, and Castiel had never felt confident enough to ask about them. It seemed insensitive given their positions, and he didn’t like to bring up anything that reminded either of them of the disparity between their stations in life. They had always been the same in his mind—two halves of a whole—and he’d seen no reason to bring up something that might crack them apart. 

Though he supposed he had done that all on his own when he’d left with Hermes. 

“ _ You’re _ my family,” Dean told him, and drew him close enough to kiss him. “We should prepare for dinner. Let’s clean up and rest a bit. I’m looking forward to having a proper meal for a change.” 

Castiel didn’t press. 

By evening, both Dean and Castiel had properly bathed, and dressed themselves in clean clothes that Sam had provided them. It was the first time that they resembled their old selves since Castiel had returned, and his heart ached, once again, for the years they had missed while he’d been away. He tried, as Dean instructed, to remember that if he had stayed, he would have been sent away eventually anyway, and that though it may not have been as thorough a separation as it had been, they would have been parted all the same. They were meant to enjoy a normal meal now, and he would focus on that for the time being. 

A servant came to lead them to the dining hall, and Dean gave Castiel a reassuring smile before they were forced to resume the fiction that they were nothing more than close companions. Once Castiel recounted his journey to Sam, and he had a moment to speak with him alone, he intended to set that right immediately. He refused to carry on hiding his feelings for Dean, regardless of where they were. He’d wasted too much time away from him, and he had no desire to waste any more. 

When they arrived at the table, Sam was already seated at the head of it, a veiled woman with hair fairer than Dean’s had ever been to his right. She had keen eyes, and looked to be significantly older than Sam, though quite beautiful. There was something about her that made Castiel feel certain she was very clever. Hermes was seated next to a tall, upright woman, with dark features and a strong, straight nose. She sat to Sam’s left, and Castiel knew at once—even without seeing her bright, divine eyes—that she was the goddess Athena.

It was, on the whole, a rather strange scene. The single table, and the small number of people at it, felt extremely humble, though everyone at the table outranked both Dean and Castiel by leaps and bounds. Two gods and a king, even if that king was rather young, seemed unlikely dinner companions for a thief and a runaway slave who had not long before offended an Olympian. 

Sam stood, an eager smile on his face, and gestured to the seats across from Hermes and Athena, “Honored guests, please, sit.” 

Castiel bowed his head slightly to Hermes and Athena, as well as to Sam and the woman next to him, before they approached their seats and took them once Sam sat back down. He chose not to watch Dean too closely, as he felt certain that after their encounter with Apollo, it was unlikely that he’d show deference to anyone, even if those people might hold the keys to his freedom. He was stubborn that way, and rather than think too heavily on it, Castiel decided, he would simply pay due diligence for both of them. His skin had still glowed faintly, like dew in the morning sun, and his senses were still heightened, though much more bearable than it had been to start. Still, he thought it wise to continue on as though nothing about him had changed. He didn’t like to press his luck, even if he had the potential to withstand any other divine attacks that might come his way.

The woman next to Sam rang a bell, and food and wine were immediately brought out and placed before all of them. 

“Now that we’re all here,” Sam began, his smile relaxing a bit, “I’d like to thank you, all of you, formally, for all that we owe you. My mother and I could not have come so far without your help, and I hope that I am able to make myself a king worthy of your gifts.” 

Castiel couldn’t have felt more uncomfortable with the praise, and Dean, ever able to sense his moods, pressed the outside of his thigh against Castiel’s in reassurance. 

“You will more than live up to your name,” this from Athena, whose deep, rich voice seemed to roll over Castiel like honey. “Your mother’s continued devotion, as well as your own proves your worth to me. Both intelligent, both devout, I have seldom been able to find fault in either of you.” 

Sam flushed, and bowed his head graciously. His mother did the same. 

Slowly, Athena turned her eyes on Castiel, who, without being able to help himself, glanced briefly at his father. 

She was more intimidating than Apollo by leagues. Her movements and her temperament seemed slow and deliberate, and it unnerved Castiel just slightly. Whatever had happened when he faced Apollo, Castiel felt that Athena might be able to succeed where Apollo had failed. 

Hermes looked almost bored.

“I have heard much about your exploits, Son of Hermes. Naturally, without your thievery, Samuel would not have come so far so easily.”

“Athena, do not flatter him,” Hermes said. “He has been difficult since birth. He was of the mind to disobey me at the beginning of this. And his companion is the reason for his obstinance then, and Apollo’s bad temper now.” 

Castiel shot a harsh look at Hermes, who seemed totally unaffected as he downed his wine, and gestured for more. 

Athena lifted one of her finely sculpted brows, and glanced at her brother before she turned her attention back to Castiel and Dean. “Is this true?” 

“Yes,” Dean said, apparently at the end of his ability to stay obediently silent. “We were companions as children. I begged him not to go.” 

Castiel was on edge, and he swallowed wine as he glanced nervously in Sam’s direction. Neither he, nor his mother looked particularly offended. Rather, Sam seemed to be interested in every word that passed between them, and his mother looked carefully observant. Her eyes fixed to Dean. 

“Despite that, he went anyway. He took with him a spear that I’d made, and half of my heart. In his absence, I was sold by his family to a brothel—a fate which I managed to escape with the help of a close friend, as well as Hermes. I took refuge at a temple of Apollo.”

Dean took Castiel’s hand beneath the table, and Castiel, who felt as though their fate rested on whatever Dean said next, could do nothing but squeeze it back. 

“I spent years there. When Cas found me again, I was overcome.” He glanced at their hosts, before he locked eyes with Athena, “In Apollo’s temple, without any hesitation or remorse, I let him fuck me.” 

Castiel, who was mid-drink, choked violently on his wine.

Hermes laughed. 

Sam had gone the color of pomegranate. His mother placed a sympathetic hand on his forearm. 

Only Athena and Dean seemed unaffected by this indelicate confession. 

“As you can imagine, Apollo was not pleased.”

“No, I imagine not,” Athena said. “What possessed you?”

“When he left, it was to fulfill the prophecy that had been bestowed upon him since birth. ‘To make a great king and be worshiped as a god.’ I told him that I would,” Dean cleared his throat, but continued without shame, “make him my god. He could use my body as his temple, and I would worship him enough for the whole world. I only kept my word. I had spent so long waiting for him, and when he returned—in that moment—I wanted only him. I could not wait. I would change nothing if I had it to do again.” 

Castiel felt dizzy. Dean, for all his quivering anger after they’d escaped Apollo, had not learned even the slightest measure of humility. They would, again, be lucky if all Sam did was throw them out, and Athena didn’t try to avenge her brother’s pride. 

“How is it that you managed to survive slighting him in such a way? He is not known for his patience in such extreme matters of offense.” 

Dean opened his mouth to speak, and Castiel, who had somewhat recovered, decided that he should probably take over. “We almost didn’t. Apollo shot me with his arrow. I should have died then, but I did not. The spear Dean made, which I thought lost to me when I used it to pierce Poseidon’s brow, reappeared in my hand. I...asked Apollo whether it was the greater offense to have fucked in his temple or for him to have fucked mine, as he had taken Dean for a lover while he sheltered there.” Castiel averted his eyes as he said this, still mildly embarrassed that they were speaking so frankly about the subject. “More or less, that was the end of it. We left and made our way here.”

Hermes could hardly contain his laughter, “Apollo neglected to tell us such details. I’m almost impressed, Castiel. Almost proud.”

Castiel scowled at him, but his scowl quickly morphed to worry when he caught the look in the eyes of Sam’s mother, and the way which she leaned in and whispered something frantic in his ear. He was afraid they would be sent away after all of this. Where would they go then? 

“You should be mortal, yet, it seems you are not,” Athena said slowly. 

“It isn’t unheard of for mortals to become immortal,” Hermes offered. “It’s not even particularly unusual.”

“No. But there is usually a divine catalyst. Or do you think Apollo forgot to mention that he made him a god prior to trying to kill him?” 

Hermes snorted. “It’s fairly obvious.” He waved his hand vaguely in Dean’s direction as he took another drink of wine, “It’s the boy. I’m just not quite sure how he managed it.” 

“Me?” Dean sounded as puzzled as Castiel felt. 

Athena inclined her head just slightly, “I believe what Hermes says is true. It probably has to do with the combination of Castiel’s blood and your... _ particular _ devotion, but if it is as you say, then it would make sense. I do not believe it would have worked if he had been a common mortal, but as he is half Olympian already, it is possible that if your intent was pure enough and strong enough, that such a change might occur. I’d imagine as long as you maintained your belief in him, his power would persist, if not grow.”

Castiel and Dean looked at one another, and the look in Dean’s eyes made him feel as though his heart had stopped. Perhaps he wasn’t of divine lineage, but he had managed to create a god all the same. Dean was glorious in so many ways, and right now he was looking at Castiel as though he wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of the night “worshiping,” him. 

Sam coughed delicately, and Castiel forced himself to pull his gaze from Dean’s. 

“A test, then. Can you still summon the spear?” Athena asked, as though she had read the next thought in Castiel’s head. 

“I don’t-”

“Focus, Castiel,” Hermes said pointedly. 

Castiel frowned slightly, but did as he was told, and tried to concentrate on the spear that Dean had crafted for him—the heft of it, the gleaming tip, and lovingly polished shaft. It materialized in his palm a moment later, and he looked almost surprised to see it there. 

“A divine weapon,” Athena said evenly. “As Ares’ helm, Zeus’ thunderbolt, or Artemis’ bow, there is your spear. It has pierced the flesh of a god, so there is no denying it.” 

Castiel ran his fingers along the shaft, in awe of what he had become, of what Dean had made him. 

Dean, on the other hand, had let go of Castiel’s hand, and taken the opportunity to casually run his fingers along a different shaft, which sent a bolt of pleasure up Castiel’s spine so sudden and so intense that he nearly dropped his spear altogether, and had to bite his tongue to keep from yelping. 

Hermes lifted a brow at him, and Castiel tried and failed to banish the flush from his cheeks. 

Sam coughed once more, and it was clear that this time he meant to get their attention, though Castiel supposed he was wary of interrupting the conversation of the now, apparently, three gods sitting at his table. His face had only somewhat lost the embarrassed coloring it had gained when Dean had declared what he had done with Castiel in Apollo’s temple, and he looked a little unsettled by the entire thing. 

“My mother,” he started, his eyes fixed on Dean as he spoke, “Would like to know if she heard your name correctly. She doesn’t speak the common tongue exceptionally well, and she wasn’t sure she heard you correctly.” He managed to look apologetic, “I should have asked for it sooner myself. I was just happy to have you both here.” 

“My name?” Dean asked, somewhat skeptically.

Sam nodded. 

“It’s Dean. Dekanos by birth. It’s not common, so I understand why she might have had trouble with it.” 

Castiel watched as Sam’s mother gripped his wrist with a pale hand. Sam leaned in, and without either of them taking their eyes off of Dean, listened as she whispered something else in his ear. Castiel was beginning to feel uneasy again, and he covered Dean’s hand (which hadn’t moved far from the inside of his thigh) with his own. 

Sam looked troubled, “She wishes to know where you came from.” He glanced at his mother, as though concerned by her sudden interest in Dean. 

Dean glanced at Castiel, furrowed his brow, and squeezed his thigh in such a way that Castiel could tell he was uncomfortable with this sudden line of questioning. 

Castiel rubbed his thumb over the back of Dean’s palm. 

“I’ve been Cas’ companion for most of my life. We grew close when we were still young.” 

Castiel knew that Dean’s wording was for his benefit, and he sighed softly before he spoke. “My mother’s husband conquered Dean’s people. He was brought in with the women that were taken as slaves. Since we were close in age and I was relatively unpopular, I was allowed to keep him as my companion. He...” Castiel hesitated, “He was a prince once. Before he came to me.” 

Sam’s mother pressed her free hand against her mouth beneath her veil. After a moment, she pulled it away again and spoke in a surprisingly strong voice. “Do you remember your family?” 

It wasn’t her question that Castiel found shocking, but rather, the language she asked it in. Or more to the point, that he understood her when she asked it.

“She’s asking-” Sam started. 

“We understood,” Dean and Castiel said in unison. Castiel could feel his father’s amused eyes on them, but he chose to ignore him once again. There was an odd feeling rising inside of him, and he couldn’t spare the attention for Hermes or his teasing. 

Sam looked puzzled and glanced between the two of them, “You do?”

Castiel nodded, but his eyes were fixed on Dean, who was looking at Sam’s mother as though he wasn’t sure if she’d slap him or hug him. She stared back, a frightened, yet determined look in her eyes. 

After several long moments, Dean spoke slowly and deliberately in his native tongue. “My father was killed. I had a younger brother, just a baby at the time. And a mother with hair like yours.” 

It occurred to Castiel, at that moment, that Dean might have forgotten the language altogether if not for Amara and Castiel’s own determination to communicate with Dean more easily. While they’d grown up, they’d used it almost as a secret code—one that only Amara was sometimes privy to—as there were few people in Castiel’s region that understood it. It had always felt somewhat more intimate to him when he spoke it with Dean than when they spoke the common tongue. Hearing him speak it now, in front of so many, made him feel vaguely exposed, as though someone was watching them sleep. 

“Their names?” she asked, her voice and gaze never wavering. 

“I don’t remember,” Dean said. “I was young.”

It was a lie, Castiel knew. Dean had only just told him that Sam’s name was the same as his infant brother’s had been. That it had conjured complicated, nostalgic feelings inside of him from the moment he’d heard it. 

She stood and grabbed her son’s arm with one hand, while she pressed the other against her own chest, “Sam, and Mary.” Her eyes were wide and fierce, as though she needed Dean to understand what she was saying before she did anything else. “When they came…” her eyes drifted to Castiel for a moment before she turned them back to Dean. “ _ We _ are your family,” she jabbed herself once hard to emphasize what she meant. 

Sam’s eyes were huge as he looked helplessly from his mother to Dean.

Dean shook his head once, as though he didn’t believe what he was hearing, or waking from a dream. “Cas is...how would that be possible?” He looked over at Castiel, as if he might have all the answers he needed. 

Castiel interlaced their fingers, “What proof do you have?” he asked. Despite the fact that what she said sounded patently absurd, he was having a difficult time disbelieving the claim. Especially given that Dean had already recognized Sam on some level. It seemed an unlikely coincidence. 

Mary looked affronted, even from behind her veil. “I know my sons,” she said evenly. “I know that when your people came for us, I threw myself at the mercy of the goddess Athena and begged her to protect my boys as she had always protected me.” 

“But, it was a long time ago. It doesn’t have to be-” 

“I did what I could,” Athena interrupted Castiel. “And it meant that you had to be parted from one of them. We do not like to meddle overmuch in the affairs of men.”

Mary looked momentarily ashamed, then quietly, “Sam needed me more.”

Dean stood suddenly, and stormed out of the room. 

Castiel, slightly bewildered, gave a cursory glance at everyone in the room and followed after him. As ever, he’d follow wherever Dean led.

He found Dean in a dark corner of the courtyard, shoulders hunched, back turned. An anguished cry had confirmed his position to Castiel, but he’d found that despite losing sight of him, and the fact that they were in an unfamiliar place, he’d found him easily, almost as though he could sense where he was. If he’d walked through the residence blind, he felt certain he still could have found him. 

Castiel called his name, and when he didn’t immediately answer him, called it again and placed a hand on his shoulder. 

“Let’s go,” Dean said fiercely. “Let’s leave, we can go anywhere. I don’t want to stay here.”

Castiel could hear the tears in his voice, and when he finally got him to turn and face him, was mildly shocked to see Dean’s bloodied knuckles. He glanced at the wall behind him, and could see the slight smear of blood against it. Gingerly, Castiel took his wrist, and only gripped him more firmly when Dean tried to pull away.

“Speak to me,” he said gently. “You’re not pleased to learn that your family is all right?” He carefully uncurled Dean’s fingers, and laid them over his own, while he examined them to see if he could determine whether or not they’d need to fetch a physician. 

“You’re my family,” Dean said, and he pulled his hand from Castiel’s grip as he stepped closer and wrapped his arms around his neck. “I’ve been without them this long.”

“But you don’t have to be any longer,” Castiel said carefully. “It seems fate would see you reunited. It’s a good thing.”

Dean stepped back, and looked at him incredulously. “Does it please you to hear what they claim? That I was sacrificed to save them, because once again, my life was at the mercy of the gods and their caprices? Athena claims they do not like to meddle in the affairs of men, but it was she who asked my mother to choose between her children. I was not chosen. Then Hermes who asked you to choose between me and your glory. I was not chosen. The gods have done nothing but meddle in my life from the start!”

Castiel felt a deep shame wash over him at this. He would have given anything to go back and do it all again. 

“And now you,” Dean’s voice broke, and fresh tears rolled down his cheeks. “A god of my own, made just for me. Made by me. Maybe a reward for all I have suffered at their hands. I would choose you in a thousand lifetimes, over and over again. And I believe that you’d choose me. But this, it’s too…Blood is no guarantee of love. I would sooner leave here with love I know is mine, than to stay and try to win that which could fade when I fail to meet their expectations.” 

Castiel cupped his face and pressed their foreheads together, “How could you ever fail in such a way? You have already made a god of me. They heard Hermes and Athena confirm as much. What more could they wish of you?”

“I have made a thief of you,” Dean said, his brow troubled, as he rested his palms against Castiel’s biceps.

“And so have they. Did I not steal a trident for their benefit? Do you regret it? Should I return you to Apollo? To the brothel?” He kept his voice gentle and tried to convey to Dean that he would never do any such thing.

Dean shook his head. “I just want to be with you. I’ve spent years longing for that. Do we not deserve to be happy together? To rest? This will only complicate things.”

Castiel sighed,  “I would bend to your every will. Anything in my power that you desire, I will give you. And no one, god or mortal, will part us again—I won’t allow it. But I do not believe that you care nothing about becoming acquainted with what’s left of your family. I know you too well. No one knows better than I how enduring your love can be. Would you have remembered your brother’s name for so long were that not the case?” He brushed tears from Dean’s cheek, and Dean turned his head and kissed his palm.

“Come, let me tend your hand. We’ll talk of other things for now. Tell me one of your stories, like when we were boys.”

Dean smiled weakly, but nodded and let Castiel lead him away. 

They were left undisturbed for the remainder of the night, and Castiel couldn’t be certain if it was out of a sense of shame, or because they were in equal need of the distance, that neither Sam nor Mary came to them. 

Castiel carefully cleaned and bandaged Dean’s hand, listening as Dean managed to recount a bawdy tale he’d heard from one of the sailors on the ship they’d come on. They laughed, and some of the night’s tension fell away. Of course, after having spent time trying not to touch one another, now that they no longer needed to pretend, it was only too easy for them to fall into one another, and shatter what was left of the tense atmosphere that had been created at dinner. 

Dean whispered prayers and praise, interspersed with filthy urgings against Castiel’s ear, and Castiel had to concentrate very hard not to immediately come apart between his hands. It amused Dean to have Castiel pressed against him and unable to control the flush of his skin when he said something particularly indecent, or to see the look on his face when Dean let out an unabashed moan. He didn’t seem to care that they were guests, or that if someone heard them, they could easily be asked to leave. Castiel chose to follow his lead in this too. They were in a comfortable room, and they hadn’t touched properly in days—whatever Dean wanted, he gave to him, and whatever he wanted, Dean was more than happy to give in return. 

At a certain point, after Dean had begged him to move faster—his injured hand above his head, while the other was clenched against Castiel’s shoulder—and both of them delirious with desire for one another, Castiel finally cried out as well, and he spilled across the skin of their thighs and abdomens. 

Dean wasn’t far behind him, and once they had both settled, sweat soaked and slick, Dean pressed kisses to every inch of Castiel within reach.

“If you’re a god now, truly, then does that mean you’re immortal?” Dean asked, as he combed his fingers lazily through Castiel’s hair. “Like your father and the others?” 

Castiel was nearly asleep, and it took him a moment to draw up an answer for him. “Gods last as long as belief does. They endure because worship for them endures. If there were no temples or shrines, then I think there would be no gods either.” He yawned and pressed his nose against Dean’s neck. 

“Then when I die-”

“I’ll die too.” 

He could sense Dean’s frown, and so he forced himself to roll over next to him so he could look at him properly. “What is it?” 

“Nothing,” Dean frowned. “Only that it doesn’t seem fair.” 

“It’s fair,” Castiel soothed. “I would not care to exist without you in this world. I’m happy to stop breathing when you do, not a moment later.” He drew the pad of his thumb over Dean’s lower lip, “I would give my godhead up completely if it didn’t mean that I would be less able to protect you and our future together. I don’t care to be what I am, except that your love made me such. Without you, there is no point. You’ve always seen me when others couldn’t bear to look. Remember that.” 

Dean’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled, and Castiel could have melted. 

“You flatter, Castiel. But I will allow it only because I’m pleased with your performance tonight,” he teased. 

Castiel flushed as Dean ran his finger down the bridge of his nose and finished it with a kiss. “Sleep,” he whispered, “and perhaps this temple will open again to you in the morning.” He grinned. 

Castiel rolled his eyes and pushed his face away gently, before he curled into him and fell asleep. 

The next morning, the space at Castiel’s side was cold. He sat upright, immediately alert, and without thinking called his spear into his hand. That alone was a bit of a surprise, but more unsettling was the fact that Dean was nowhere in the room. 

Castiel scrambled out of bed, and only just managed to make himself decent before he exited the room to look for Dean. In the time it took him to clear the hall and head for the stairs, he realized that if something bad had happened to Dean, he would have already known it. It wasn’t quite empathy, but he’d noticed a heightened sense of awareness, in tune with Dean’s general well-being since they’d reunited. He’d been able to find him with little difficulty the night before. He could do it again. 

He took a deep breath and did away with his spear. 

When he was calm again, he headed in the direction of the courtyard, and was mildly surprised to see Mary supplicating in the same place they’d found Sam the day before. He would have kept on searching for Dean, except that she turned and fixed him with a cool gaze right as he decided to carry on. He could see, now, the resemblance between her and Dean. There were plenty of times when Dean looked at him that he seemed incapable of movement, and it was no different now as Mary crossed to meet him where he stood. 

She stared up at him, and haltingly, he greeted her using the language he had learned so many years ago. Her gaze made him nervous. 

“Your name is Castiel,” she said, and it hung in the air between them for a moment as Castiel nodded once. “Dean is your slave? Since he was taken from me?” 

“No,” Castiel said firmly. “No, I’ve never thought of him like that. We were companions, friends. Then…Now, we’re more. More than friends. More than lovers. I came here to make sure no one could call him ‘slave,’ ever again. To ask for asylum.”

She lifted her brows, “But you are a god now. Do you need to ask for such things?”

Castiel immediately flushed, “That’s a...recent development. Anyway, I might be a god, but Dean is not. I want to protect him, from both gods and men. Besides, it’s not as though anyone but Dean thinks so highly of me. I was barely able to keep Apollo at bay. Even as a god, I’m afraid I may be lacking.” 

Mary reached up and carefully pressed a palm to his cheek. “You do your best,” she said evenly. “And so far, your best has saved both of my sons. I may not know him anymore, but even as a child, Dean’s belief in things—his faith in what he felt to be right and true were powerful.” She patted his cheek, and there was the hint of a smile around her eyes, “I once thought he might become a priest. Or a politician. Clearly, I was nearly right. He seemed stubborn enough to be either, even before he was two. Determined.” 

Castiel grimaced, “That particular aspect of his personality hasn’t seemed to change. When my mother’s husband brought him, he looked as though he’d tear our entire house down if he could.” His voice softened, “It made me want him for a friend. I had never seen anyone look the way he did.”

Mary looked at him for a moment before she turned to cross the courtyard, “Come. Tell me about how he was.” 

Castiel looked mildly surprised, and glanced over his shoulder at the entryway. He had been intending to carry on searching for Dean. “Do you know where he is? He was gone-”

Mary continued to walk, “With Sam. And the dog.” She waved her hand, “There are gardens, you can be my escort.”

She seemed not to have any intention of slowing her pace for him, and he hurried to catch up before she got too much farther. 

They walked together in silence for a while, Mary’s arm in his, and Castiel found that he didn’t mind it as much as he thought he should have. He felt a certain awkwardness about it, walking with Dean’s mother, who was unfamiliar to both of them, but she seemed at ease, and that made it less odd. 

Eventually, his tongue loosened, and without too much prompting from her, he found himself telling her of the way Dean had cried when he’d first tried to befriend him, of the way they’d had to work at learning to communicate with one another until it came as natural as breath between them. He ended up spilling all sorts of stories about his childhood with Dean, even about how awkwardly they had come to realize their feelings for one another before Hermes had come for him. She laughed, and the way her eyes crinkled in the corners when she did reminded him so much of Dean, he wasn’t sure how he’d missed recognizing her as his mother from the beginning. He didn’t know how long they walked among the rows and hedges of the garden, only that by the end of it, they ended up back outside the residence, and he felt more than a little hungry.

“I can see how deeply you care for him,” Mary said as she pulled her arm from Castiel’s and looked up at him. “Thank you for sharing your stories. The things I missed.” 

“He feels like he needs to choose,” Castiel said gruffly. “Between staying with me, and getting to know you. He’s afraid he’ll disappoint you both.” 

Mary’s brows lifted, “I only ever wished for his safety and happiness. When I was forced to part from him, Sam was all that I had left. I had to focus on protecting him, on raising him to be strong and intelligent so that we would never be in such a situation again. Both of my sons have long since exceeded my expectations.” She grasped Castiel’s hand briefly, “I hope that you both decide to stay. I’d like the chance to know you. I know Sam would too. You’ve given me a great gift today, and I want you to know that you’ll always be welcome here.”

Castiel offered her a brief, awkward smile, but was prevented from saying anything more as he heard Dean call his name from inside the courtyard. He approached, with Sam a few feet behind him looking a bit bewildered by Dean’s energy, but not upset. A scraggly looking dog also followed after them, and Sam caught it around the neck and crouched to pet it between the ears before it had a chance to bound toward Dean and Castiel. Mary met Sam’s eyes for a moment before she moved past him, and touched the top of his head lightly as she disappeared inside. 

Sam looked over his shoulder at her, nodded once to Castiel, and then turned to follow after his mother, pulling the dog along with him as he went. It was interesting to see how easily they communicated. Castiel had never had that level of closeness with his own mother, and he wondered whether Sam and Mary’s relationship would be the way it was if his mother’s husband hadn’t stolen Dean away, and slaughtered most of the rest of their people. 

When they were alone again, Castiel couldn’t help but return Dean’s glowing smile as they joined hands. “What have you been up to?” he asked. “You seem in better spirits now than last night.” He walked with Dean to the well in one corner of the courtyard, and took his injured hand to examine it as Dean leaned against the edge of it. 

“It’s fine,” Dean told him, half exasperated. “And I… thought I acted badly last night. We came to ask for their help. And they wanted to thank you. I ruined the meal.” 

Castiel’s brows knit together, “I think it was understandable. Besides,” he started, his expression darkening, “It was my father and Athena that instigated the situation. As you say, they make toys of men.” 

Dean reached up and placed his palm against Castiel’s face, so that his thumb brushed against his cheek, “It is the way of most gods. But I am not a god, and I reacted poorly. I wanted to regain some face for the both of us. I went to Sam this morning, to explain. And to understand.” 

Castiel pressed a kiss to his palm, “It is not my way,” he murmured. 

Dean huffed a laugh, “No, you needn’t toy with me to bend me to your will. I’m already yours.”

Castiel fitted himself between Dean’s thighs, and rested his hands at his hips to keep him steady on the edge of the well, “Did you meet your aim?”

Dean nodded, “We talked. He told me that he knew of me, but only in the barest sense. His— _ our _ ,” he corrected himself awkwardly, “mother hardly spoke of the time before they arrived back here. He only knew that I existed, nothing else. She never even spoke my name to him.”

“She needed to guard her heart,” Castiel said gently. “I can understand. I could hardly stand to think of you when we were apart.” 

Dean nodded and slid his arms around Castiel’s neck. “After that, he wanted to show me around the city. I thought to let you rest, so I went with him. We talked more. I told him of our predicament, of you and what we are to one another. Though, perhaps it didn’t need saying after last night.”

Castiel smiled, “Perhaps not. I spent my time similarly, but with your mother. She wishes to become better acquainted with the both of us. Do you still wish to go? Whatever your answer, I’ll be with you.” Castiel thought that staying was something that Dean wanted, but if it wasn’t, or he simply wasn’t ready, he wouldn’t force him. They would make their own way, whatever they did. Mary had reminded him of his newfound status, and the power that came with it. He wasn’t particularly inclined to exercise it, but if it meant keeping Dean by his side, he’d do it without a thought. 

Dean tilted his head up and pulled Castiel into a brief kiss. “Can I tell you something?” 

“Anything,” Castiel breathed, his head already hazy with desire for him. He had never known himself to be so easily aroused, but where Dean was concerned, it seemed there was no end to how quickly he could find himself at his mercy. 

“I don’t regret it. Being parted from them. I wouldn’t have met you otherwise.” He pressed his face against the crook of Castiel’s neck, “But I’d like to stay,” he said after a few moments, the words muffled by Castiel’s skin. “I might love them a little already. Sam is awkward, but he’s eager about everything. I don’t know about…” 

Castiel drew back enough to tilt his head and look into Dean’s eyes, “Her love for you has never waned. Much like my own. It must be a special quality of yours to inspire such devotion.” Castiel kissed his forehead, “I think you’ll like her. You’re surprisingly similar. We’ll stay. As long as you like. As long as they’ll have us.” 

“They’ll have us,” Dean said, his mood lightening a bit. “Sam wants to know what thoughts his hound has. I may have told him of your gift while we were out, and he wants to know if she’s happy.” Dean snorted, “He’s too soft-hearted to be a king, I think. But he also made me swear to teach him to carve once my hand heals. He’s apparently worse than you were,” he grinned. “I’ll start his lessons by making you a new carving of Arete. A better one.” 

“The first one was perfect.” Castiel told him sincerely. “I missed it after it was gone though, so I wouldn’t mind another.”

“Another offering,” Dean grinned. “To my personal god.” He lifted one of Castiel’s hands and pressed it to his heart. 

Castiel rolled his eyes, “You will never tire of such nonsense, will you?”

“Of course not. Just as I never tire of having you spill inside me or hearing your moans when I-” 

Castiel clamped his hand over Dean’s mouth and glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one had walked by them unexpectedly. He might have reached the status of godhood, but he certainly didn’t need everyone to know what the two of them got up to when they were alone together. 

Dean grinned and licked his palm. He pulled him into a laughing kiss when Castiel jerked his hand away, more at the sudden feeling of a tongue against his skin than out of actual disgust, though he really should have expected it coming from Dean. 

“Perhaps you don’t need me to stay after all,” Castiel scowled. “I seem only to serve the purpose of giving you someone to tease.” 

"That’s not it," Dean laughed. He smiled that warm, broad smile that always made Castiel want to throw himself over for him, "Of course I want you to stay, Cas. After all, gods may need men to worship and revere them, but men need their gods to give them hope and keep them sane, and so I need you. Never doubt it."

Castiel kissed him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's a wrap, folks! How's everyone feeling?
> 
> It was late! But I said it probably would be, so I'm actually on time 😉
> 
> Let's see- the only real chapter note is that when Dean points out Apollo's familiarity with being a slave to love it's based on an actual myth-Apollo/Admetus- where Apollo chose to serve (be a slave) to Admetus out of his love for him. It's not really significant, but just in case there was any confusion on the point, you can look it up! 
> 
> Admittedly, I probably could have expanded more on things with Sam and Mary, but I really just like to keep the focus of my fics more or less centered on one or two things, and I think doing very much more with them than I did might have been pushing it a bit. Hopefully their characters didn't feel too flat as a result. 
> 
> Anyway, thanks for sticking with me and reading this! I hope you enjoyed it. I had fun writing/expanding on this idea, and even when I got stuck or had trouble, all of the kind comments I got helped motivate me to finish! I'll take a break before I work on anything else. My brain needs the break, and while I have an idea of what I'd like my next fic to be (80s punk!Cas and yuppie!Dean, anyone?), I definitely don't have the capacity to write it well rn, so I'd rather give myself some time to chill and focus on other creative pursuits for a while. I hope everyone is doing well in the New Year and continuing to stay safe! 
> 
> Until next time 💞

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is the expanded version of the fic prompt (Thief/Bet), which I did for the SpnStayAtHome Challenge during quarantine. I had two or three fics that got a lot of feedback during this time, and this was my favorite of the them, so I decided I wanted to explore it a little more. I'm in the process of completing it, but as usual needed the motivation of starting to post chapters in order to make myself actually do it. While I'm probably about 60% - 75% complete, I don't have a posting schedule in mind, though I'd like to shoot for every other week, but it might just be once a month. Right now, it's sitting at 3 parts, but I think it will ultimately be 4 or 5. I've had fun adding to it, and have already added about 15k words of content to the original fic. I hope things feel a little more fleshed out once I'm done.
> 
> I went ahead and gave this an M rating. There won't be anything saucy until closer to the end, but I figured I might as well. As usual, I'm indecisive and so titles and even some small things within the story are subject to change if I get the notion (I really don't like the title, but it was the best I could come up with for now). I've changed stuff over and over just in re-reads as I've been working on it, which is just one more reason I decided I needed to go ahead and start posting. I hope you enjoy!


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